Take a moment to listen to the sounds of your office. What do you hear? Are there people talking, trucks pulling out of the lot, and the phone ringing? The most important of those sounds is that last one. Every ring of that phone in your office is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to serve a client, bring in some revenue, and gain a referral.

The only problem is that when we get busy, those rings of the phone begin to feel like a real nuisance, especially if you’re the owner. Somehow when we’re busy, the sweet sound of that phone ringing can just send us into a rage.

Take a moment to listen to the sounds of your office. What do you hear? Are there people talking, trucks pulling out of the lot, and the phone ringing? The most important of those sounds is that last one. Every ring of that phone in your office is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to serve a client, bring in some revenue, and gain a referral.

The only problem is that when we get busy, those rings of the phone begin to feel like a real nuisance, especially if you’re the owner. Somehow when we’re busy, the sweet sound of that phone ringing can just send us into a rage.

And that’s exactly why the owner is the last person that should be answering the phone. In fact, you’d probably be best served by putting an owner-free zone around every phone in your office. The only person that should be allowed to operate this vital piece of machinery should be a well-trained call-taker or client care representative (CCR).

Your CCR should have the training to hone their call-taking skills and the attitude to say, “Yes, we can!” That’s the most important trait your CCR can have.

That sounds awfully simple, but that “yes, we can” attitude often gets lost on owners in the heat of the moment. Take the example I shared with you in my last column. A customer called our office because he thought he had a squirrel in his roof and wanted us to check it out. It’s an unusual request and your first response would probably be a blunt no. If that call had come to you as the owner, would you have taken it?

Most owners probably wouldn’t make the most of that opportunity, but I’ve trained my team to have that “yes, we can” attitude.

After all, the reason we’re in business is to get clients to call us and use our company for service, so it doesn’t make sense to burn an opportunity before you even know what it entails.

A Case in Point

For example, we’ve never done metal roofing in my company before. I know it’s out there and several contractors specialize in it, but when a customer called up and asked if we did metal roofing, my CCR didn’t miss a beat. She simply said, “Yes, we can. I’ll have our metal roofing specialist call you.”

So I became a metal roofing specialist by doing some research on the costs involved, the installation procedures, and possible options for subbing out a metal roof job. I called these homeowners, whom we’ll call the Thompsons, and went to their home to discuss their roofing options. The Thompsons had recently put an addition onto their home that had a metal roof, and they wanted the roof of the rest of their home to match.

At this point, I could have again said that I didn’t do metal roofing and walked away. Instead, I took some measurements and sat down to discuss some options with the Thompsons. I went through my entire presentation and explained to them in great detail why my company was the one they should do business with today. Then, we went over all of their roofing options, which included several metal options as well as different levels of shingle options.

I was ready to see sticker shock from the Thompsons, but as it turned out, I was the only company that bothered to call them back. Since I was thorough with them and covered all of the options they had available to them, they were able to see what fit their budget. I was ready to install whatever roof they chose, but as it turned out, the metal roof they wanted was out of their budget, so they chose a premium shingle option.

Now, any of you reading this, as well as any of the companies in my market, could have put the roof on that the Thompsons chose, but since I was the only one that said, “Yes, we can” and showed up, I was able to help the Thomspons with their new roof.

That’s an opportunity I wouldn’t have had if I’d stuck to what I know, but every call is an opportunity to serve a client. Don’t let them get away.

What happens when a client needs something that you really don’t do? Well, that’s a great opportunity to partner with another local business that does offer that service. You can partner with them to swap leads. Just be sure to do your research and make sure you’re partnering with a reputable company. There’s nothing worse than having your company’s reputation tarnished by a third party on a job you’re not even getting paid for.

You never know where a phone call might lead. I recently purchased a phone number in my area for a garage door company that went out of business, and we received a call for garage door service. Now, we really don’t do that, but my CCR told that client that we had a partner company that would do the work for us.

That’s when the client asked what type of work we did, and when my CCR answered that we were a roofing company, she said, “Well, that’s funny because my roof is leaking. Can you come give me an estimate on that too?”

I’ll give you one guess what my CCR’s response was - three magic words: “Yes, we can.”