It Is Not Your Phone System

A really funny thing happened to me the other day. This post maybe more oriented to real estate professionals or small business owners, but I thought it was funny enough to share with everyone.

There was a house that some of my clients wanted to see. I called the agent representing the property whose name happened to be the same as the brokerage’s office name. She didn’t answer the phone and it went to her phone system… “press 1 to speak with a real estate professional, press 2 to set a showing appointment, press 3 for a directory of agents…” and so on. I pressed 2. No answer. They just asked me to leave a message. Knowing that my clients wanted to see the property pretty soon, I needed to speak with someone live.

I hung up and tried again. This time, I decided to press 1 and speak with a real estate professional, knowing that they could “hook me up” with a showing appointment pretty fast. No answer. Just a machine again.

I tried the showing appointment center again and got nothing.

I decided to use the directory so that I could talk to SOMEONE. I pressed 3. They asked me to dial the first three letters of the persons last name… I’m on a black berry so this is very hard to do. The numbers and letters are not the same as a standard phone. I have a full keyboard, but only the numbers work when the phone is activated. So, I did my best, guessing which letters fall on certain numbers. Doing what I could to count it out, abc = 2, def = 3, ghi = 4, jkl = 5, mno = 6, p..q.. r… wait?? Where is ‘q’? If ‘q’ is on 7 is ’s’ on 8? That messed up my count. I tried about 3 or 4 times to get her name right… each time failing because my black berry didn’t allow me to win in this stupid game.

Fifth time’s a charm… “stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly” - the phone system must have gotten tired of me pressing a bunch of numbers…. but no one was with me… and shortly had come and gone. I hung up and tried the directory again, determined to listen to the entire thing until I heard this agent/broker’s name. Redial, again, I pressed 3… I pressed 2 to hear the entire directory. There was one agent in the directory. It was her. ONLY 1 agent. I pressed 1 to speak with “that” agent…

“I’m not able to take your call right now… … Leave a message or call my cell… BEEP!”

I hung up. I tried her cell phone which said, “I’m not able to take your call right now… for showing appointments or to speak with someone immediately, contact our office… BEEP!” I laughed.

I left a message. 2 days later she called back. The time had passed. The home didn’t get shown. What did I tell my clients? On Day 1, they asked me if I had set the appointment. I told them the short version of the story and said, “Here is ‘their’ number. Call her.” They had the exact same experience!

My point?

Success isn’t about a phone system, it is about service. Using the latest and greatest in technology doesn’t help if your service suffers.

P.S. People don’t like talking to machines. If you are the only agent in your office, make sure to have all calls come to ONE place… YOU! Because YOU are the company!

I hope you enjoyed the story! & “Please leave a message… BEEP!”