Anyone who has looked at my blog will know that we are currently recruiting.  I rang one of the local job sites on Friday who we’ve done business with before but who were recently taken over by a large media organisation.

“Hello”

“Hello, can I speak to *** please?”

“*** who?”

“*** who does the jobsite”

“She’s gone home” (fair enough – it’s 4:30 on a Friday")

“Is there anyone else who I can speak to?”

“No”

“Ok – bye”

And off I go to a competitor.

What about – “I’ll see if someone else can help you” or “can I help you” or “can I take a message” or just put me through to voicemail.

Probably not the guys fault who answered the phone – he should have been trained.  Everyone who has a phone on there desk should be given some clear instructions about how to use it.

Answer in a consistent and friendly that identifies you and your business - “Good morning/afternoon Stiona Software, Stuart McLean speaking”.  I learnt this from waiting for my mum in her works reception after school.  All the trained receptionists answered the phone like this.  Consider chucking on “how can I help you?”.

The caller will then generally ask to speak to someone specifically.  If the persons not there, ask if there is anyone else they would like to speak to.  Offer to help them yourself.  Offer to take a message.  Offer to put them through to voice mail.  Give an email address.  This could be a £1M client!

Then today I got the professional treatment.  I’m preparing for my motorcycle road trip next weekend.  Last night I watched “The Motorcycle Diaries” – great film about Ché Guevara and his friend’s trip around South America.  A bit further than Belfast to Dungloe but for anyone whose been to the North West of Ireland will agree the road conditions are pretty similar.

My insurance expires soon so I dug out the quote from my existing company.  Last year I paid £79, this year they wanted £95.  Am I going to pay that?  So I do a re-quote on go-compare – one of my favourite top 10 sites – and get a quote for £78.  Usually I would have just taken that.  I hate the way insurance companies give you their “cheapest” renewal quote and then are willing to reduce it to match a competitor.  Why didn’t you just match the competitor in the first place?  When you do this what they are saying to me is “I lied when I told you that was our best renewal quote – I could have done it cheaper but I wanted to chance my arm”.

But, I had to ring the current company anyway as they had my card details.  So I got through given a couple of push button options but not too many (only 2 steps with 2 options on each) and got an operator.

“Hello, Sarah speaking – how can I help you?”

Straight out of the bat – how can she help me?

She asked me about the other quote.  What was the excess.  Yes it was much higher but on a bike that is now only worth about £1000 that you wrote off before and bought back and repaired then you don’t really care about excess anymore – and I told her that.

So she moved through the other “non-price” differentiators – carrying pillion passengers – same – no claims bonus protected – different.

“Your current policy has no claims bonus protection”  I’ve about 12 years real no-claims although for some reason insurance companies can’t count past 5.

And, by magic, she got the price down to £87.

So I took it.  I spent more money and felt good about it.

Today I’m watching “The long way round” the epic journey of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman from London to New York on motorbikes and looking forward to next weekends trip.

I’ve noticed over recent months that we are getting more and more sales calls and spam and that these are coming from businesses who previously would not have bothered with a small company such as us. I suggest some of these larger cats have been in the comfort zone too long and need to learn some lessons from some of the fighting fit alley cats that smaller business have.

Today I received two terrible sales calls. The first was from our car leasing company. We have some company cars on contract hire from a local supplier who is a very large franchise. We have had these a couple of years and I arranged it all and met the account manager at the time to sign the documents etc.

Today he called the office and asked to speak to me – first contact in two years:

“Mr McLean”

“Yes – Hi”

“This is … from … just ringing to check on how your cars are”

“Fine thanks”

“Good – well give me a ring if you want anything”

“OK – bye”

“Bye”

I mean – what was the point of that. Presumably the account manager has been either told or decided to ring all his customers and try and drum up new business but maybe he should have been given an indication of how to do it! For example, neither myself or any of the company directors have company cars – maybe he could have asked what I drive and if I was thinking of changing it.

(For the record I cycle to work but also drive a 1995 Land Rover Discovery that I run on Bio Diesel – carbon neutral. The car has lots of seats for all the kids that I seem to have accumulated. The bike is more reliable. It’s now worth £2K more than last week for a new trade in so I might get £4K– all I need is the 26K or so to upgrade to a new one. Of course – I’d also have to have the engine taken out of the old one and put in the new one as the new ones don’t run on Biodiesel so neither me nor the planet could afford to run it – which kind of defeats the point of a new car.)

The second call was even more bizarre. Since Geraldine was meeting an insurance salesman – yes they’ve started coming to our office in person for our meager pickings – and everyone else was busy I answered the ‘phone – something I generally try to avoid.

“Stiona Software, Stuart McLean speaking” – my standard greeting.

“Can I speak to the head of marketing?”

“Can I ask what about?”

“Marketing”

“He doesn’t take sales calls”

“Will he take an email?”

“No – Bye”

I’m no sales guru – but there are some pretty fundamental mistakes here. Firstly, I identified myself when I answered the ‘phone. If the caller had spent one minute researching our website before the call he would have known that I am one of the directors. Why would you want to speak to the head of marketing if you had a director? At worst having pitched to me I would have past him down to the right person – not that we have a “head of marketing” mind you – in fact I would be the head of marketing too! (We’re not IBM.)

Secondly, its about “marketing”. Wow – now I’m excited – I can tell its really vital that I connect you straight away because boy have you convinced me about the 10 fold increase in sales I’m going to get.

Then I remember our “head of marketing” (me) doesn’t take sales calls. Maybe this isn’t a sales call? Oh it seems it is and I can opt out of it by getting an email. Perhaps I’ll not bother.

I mean – these marketing guys are just too good to use – they’ve hit the jackpot, bypassed the gatekeeper and got straight to the budget holder, decision maker and actually someone who would love to increase their market share and I don’t even know what they do (except “marketing” obviously).