Voice Mail Messaging Can change Your Life
Do you think you have to always pick up your phone each time it rings? Well…Don’t!
Your phone is supposed to be for your convenience, not for those who call you. Give yourself the freedom to continue whatever you are doing and let calls go to voice mail every now and then.
I know. I know…You might lose the client. Every single one of my clients thought that.
Guess what: you probably won’t.
1. Record a Voice Mail Greeting
Put a nice message on your voice mail in the sense of the good old “Sorry I’m busy and can’t get your call right now. I’ll call you back as soon as possible.”
If it’s important they will call again. Or they will leave a message. Or you’ll see their number on your display and call them.
The only thing that’s really bad is not calling them back right after you finished what you are doing or even forgetting them.
2. Choose Which Fits Best for You
One of my clients, a very stressed sales manager, let’s call him Steve came to me at the edge of having a serious burn out or breakdown. He got 80 calls a day and didn’t have time to do his real job - which was selling and visiting customers - because was on the phone all the time fixing everyone’s problems and continuously putting out fires.
- I laid out all the different time management tools for him. He had to choose the one which fits best for him.
- He decided to let calls go to voice mail for two hours every day and changed the message of his voice mail. “Hi. I can’t get to the phone right now. I’ll call you back as soon as i can. If it’s urgent send me a whatsapp message.”
- The first two weeks there was no big changes. In the third week he suddenly got only half the calls and by the time he called back 80% of the problems people called for in the first place were fixed.
- After a month he was relaxed. He though the reason might be that vacation time is close or that work is low.
- Three months later he had to admit to himself that he did it! He was in control of his time. He also improved his free time with his family on the weekends - because he wasn’t thinking of work all the time any more.
- Further he went on to break on his sales record for that year (2015) and this year (2016) he expects to increase his sales another 20%.
- All this nine months after his first step: changing the message of his voice mail. Mind-boggling., isn’t?
- Not picking up the phone every time it rings, telling myself “They will call again.” has been working for me for years and I didn’t lose a lot of clients by it . and if I did I’ll never know…
- I WON a lot of time though. I also learnt that if it’s a really important call the caller will not give up and probably call five times within 3 minutes...
Try it for yourself!
