As a cleaning company you are presumably always on the look out for increasing your business? This is what we are constantly striving for and I was under the impression that other cleaning companies were doing likewise. However not so long ago I made attempts to contact a number of cleaning companies in different parts of the country. 108 phone calls were made and only 9 were answered.

To me this was a staggering amount. It is true that all bar a handful had an answer phone system of some description. Like many customers I required some sort of immediate contact with an individual and not have to wait on somebody picking up a message and contacting me back at their convenience.

If I was having this trouble then ordinary commercial and domestic customers must have the same problem. Consequently all these companies are losing potential business possibly on a massive scale.

If you want new business then you must be available to talk to people when they want. If you are a small company trying to expand then it is often not possible to have your main telephone line manned all of the time. However there are a number of ways around this problem.

• Hire an answering service who will always have a person available to take your calls and direct them on to you as and when necessary. This can quickly pay for itself in the business that you can gain that would have otherwise been lost.
• Rent or purchase a telephone networking system which will pass the call on to a number of lines including mobiles until one is answered. This is a reasonably cheap option and again should pay for itself over time.
• If you do not like or cannot afford either of the two options above then at least have your answer phone message direct the customer to a mobile number. Some customers will subsequently phone the mobile number but many will not. So although you do not necessarily lose all the potential business you have no way of knowing how much has been lost..

One important rule is to always have the mobile phone switched on, fully charged and on your person unless you are in a meeting for example. Invest in a hands free kit of some description for the car and for safety purposes if at all possible pull over and stop if answering a call.

Do you want to be one of those cleaning companies which potential customers cannot contact immediately. Potential customers will only tend to ring once and of them only about 10% will ever leave a message. Get ahead of your competitors and actually devise ways of answering your phones.

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