How was your 4-day weekend? Whatever you got up to, I hope it wasn’t as stressful as what one of our colleagues endured earlier on in the week.

I’ll set the scene as it reminded us of a couple of topics we’ve mentioned separately before, but when combined, it’ll make you think – “Have I got this working in my business?”

Back to our colleague…

It was his sister’s wedding day last Tuesday and he travelled to Kent on Monday and settled in - all in good time for the main event the following day.

Now, rather than drive to the wedding venue from where he was staying, he and his partner wanted to have a couple(!) of drinks during the course of the day. So he did what most of us would do and searched for some local taxi companies in the area to try and make an advanced booking – it was quite a remote little village, so Uber didn’t have anything available.

Google did its job and returned a few results with phone numbers to call.

One of two things happened with each taxi company.

The number either rang and rang and rang (for up to 2 mins in one instance!)

Or it went to a voicemail.

And you can guess what happened.

Not a single taxi firm bothered to call back or respond to the voicemail.

And he called 6!

It was on a Monday daytime when he called – not the busiest time of the week for most taxi companies.

What’s the point of them getting their Google Business Profile, (formally Google My Business), sorted and showing up on the first page - or doing any marketing - if they’re not going to answer the phone or even get back to people who leave a message?!

Our colleague tried a 7^th - they too missed the call, but text back within 3 mins apologising (as he was just helping their previous customer unload their luggage) - and after just a 5 min text exchange, he was booked.

The other 6 companies are missing out. But it could all be rectified by having one or both of the 2 following things in place –

1. The Golden 10 minutes – when you miss a call or get an enquiry, you get back to them within 10 minutes as it massively increases the chance of you getting sales.
2. Get a call answering service – they will answer the phone when you are busy or unavailable and the customer will feel like they’ve at least been looked after to some degree and be much less likely to go looking elsewhere.

So have you got either one of these set up in your business?

If not, you really should - it’s the simplest things that can dramatically reduce your number of missed opportunities and increase your sales.