We always say that my mother's phone is either busy or she isn't home. We have suggested a number of times that she consider getting call waiting. She has put her now 87 year old foot down firmly declaring "I refuse to put people on "ignore" while I talk to someone else."
I know there is a school of "time management" in Realtor-dom (dumb?) that says you should have an updated voice mail message that lists every activity in your whole life and eventually gets around to telling you that they will, if they have time and you fit into their very busy schedule....."be returning calls between 4 and 5pm." Oh lucky me....My question, my buyer or seller has been put "on ignore" and I get to hear all about your busy day...you are on a listing call from this to that, showings from here to there...oh pullllllllllllleez....spare me....just return the call...sooner than later would be great....it's called customer service...professional courtesey...don't disguise it as time management...I don't have time to listen to your busy schedule....grrrrr.....
Sally K. & David L. Hanson, ABR, CDPE, CSS, e-Pro,ILHM, REDS
I'm with you, Sally. Just answer the darn phone. If I had to return all my phone calls at a specified time during the day, I'd be playing phone tag and getting nothing done. Deal with it when it happens, is my motto.
Amen.....and do I care what their whole day's schedule is or have time to listen to it ? Oh not...
Sally and David... I agree... They probably aren't even working anyway... and they won't call you back at that time in all liklihood!!!! They're too important for the rest of us.
Great post...
I love your mother! I too hate call waiting! I can't think of anything more rude! (Well, of course I can, but I won't go into it!)
My mother-in-law used to do that to me (when I used to talk to her) during a conversation - "Oh, hold on, there's someone on the other line!" That just made me want to hang up! Almost like, oh, I wonder if there's someone more interesting calling me?
Grrrr. What a horrible invention!
:)
I coudn't agree more -- I've tried to call a few agents to schedule showings and their voicemail would tell me that they didn't return calls unti 4 - 5 pm... so if we wanted to see their listing at 3 pm, we were out of luck (and so was their seller!).
There is a coaching school that teaches agents to give a litany of their daily routine on voice mail..wonder how many students are still in the business ?