My Life is a Never-Ending Game of Phone-Tag
As a Realtor I feel frustrated that everyone has to call me at the exact same time. Believe me, I'm pretty much available 24/7/365. But sometimes hours pass with no phone calls at all, and then as soon as I make a call, someone else tries calling in. It never fails. It seems each time I have a longer phone conversation, I miss a couple of calls from other people trying to call in.
And I understand how the other party feels. It seems to me that the majority of calls I try to place end up going to voice-mail. I almost always leave a short message. A lot of the people who call me while I'm on the other line or face-to-face with a client don't even leave a message.
And the sad part of this is that a lot of people have no loyalty or patience to wait for you to call them back. In this day of constant / instant contact, the caller assumes you are OFF, or NOT WORKING TODAY, and move on to call another agent who does answer the phone.
This even presents a dilemma for me (since I just hate missing a call) when I am showing houses to potential Buyers. I feel that when I am with them and they are with me, they deserve my attention. Occasionally I will answer a call if they are wandering around a house, or if we are on the road and we've been together for several hours. But in general, if they have an appointment with me, I'm theirs for that time. So again, while I'm with that client, I'm missing calls, and I would hate to forward my phone to anyone else, just like I don't want anyone else reading my emails.
Is this dilemma ever going to end, or is it just going to get worse as the years go on, and technology becomes even more advanced? I want to give my clients the best conceivable service, but at the end of the day, I can only speak to one person at a time, and I'm usually “first come – first serve”.
Comments(0)