What do lawyers and roofers have in common?
I recently decided it was time to update my Will. Keep reading, this isn’t a gloomy tale.
The person who’d drafted my last Will had retired so I needed to find someone new. I went straight to Google and typed in ‘Legal practices near me’. After being presented with a long list of firms, I chose three whose names I recognised.
As it was out of hours and nobody would have answered the phone, I duly completed their online ‘contact us’ forms.
Three weeks later, I still haven’t had a single response from any of them.
Something similar happened earlier this year when I was looking for a reputable roofer. A Google search threw up lots of companies. After a cursory scan of their websites and a much more thorough scroll through their Google Reviews, I made contact – using either their online contact forms or the email address standing loud and proud on their respective websites.
Guess what? None of them got back to me.
All of which got me thinking about why. I came up with three possible reasons:
- They’re swamped with work so don’t want any more business.
- The contact forms and/or email addresses on their websites are incorrect.
- They simply don’t check their inboxes.
The moral of this tale?
If your business has so much work, it can afford to ignore new enquiries, that’s your choice. Just beware that times and fortunes change and, one day, you might value their business but might have burned your bridges. People have long memories. A quick call back to explain you can’t take on the work at the moment would always be appreciated.
However, if like most businesses, you’re keen to attract more work perhaps you need to check that the contact forms and email addresses on your website are correct and working. This is a really simple thing to do.
Similarly, who is responsible for receiving and responding to inbound enquiries at your business? Are they still with you? Are enquiries falling between two stools because they’re being directed to numerous people who are all expecting their colleagues to respond? Do the recipients actually know what they’re expected to do with the enquiries?
The harsh reality is you could be missing out on lots of business because of simple oversights. Even if you don’t need the work, at least have the common decency to respond.
One final thought …
When was the last time you checked your company’s voicemail messages?
