Telephone no longer answered

I was trying to get hold of a potential client this week, as he had said that they would discuss HR support at the board meeting end of last week.

I rang his mobile – went to voicemail. Fair enough, might not be answering because he’s in a meeting.

I went through the telephone system options – chose his extension – went to voicemail (American female voice, not even his)

I rang again and chose “sales” – went to voicemail, again the American female voice, no personalisation for the business.

I then rang “accounts” and this did get answered but not by “Evasive Business” but by the freelance bookkeeper stating their name, nothing to do with the business. She assured me that the office were in, but that as she was working remotely, she could not help me any further or put me through on the phone.

Next stop customer services department– where it just rang and rang and rang. No voicemail at all.

Now while I could take this personally and think that they were ALL dodging my phone call, that feels like an unrealistic level of paranoia.

I think that they just are not prioritising answering the phone, not even to potential clients.

And I bet when I finally do get them on the phone, they will claim that they don’t have the money for HR support because “our sales are down”. Hardly a surprise when they are impossible to reach!

I realised several years ago that we could not guarantee that we would have a free phone line if clients, or potential clients, called us direct. Which is why we have been successfully working with call answering since 2012, to make sure we do not miss any calls at all.

How many potential clients are you losing because they keep being confronted with default voicemail messages?

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