Goals & Solutions: Day One Case Study

Previous Related Posts:
Goals & Strategies for Effective Time Management
Managing Time Effectively as an IT Professional

Let's take a look again at our goals and what solutions we implemented to achieve the anticpated outcome (Vicki's action plan suggestions).

GOAL: (1) Eliminate phone and email interruptions; and (2) answer every call during our business hours. This will eliminate frustrated clients and loss of potential sales from new clients.

SOLUTION: As a small business, we aren't ready to take on the expenses to hire a full time receptionist. Plus, a full time receptionist wouldn't intercept emergency after hour calls. We decided to hire a messaging service to answer our calls during regular business hours. It was important for us to use a Michigan based business, so we chose Michigan Message Center. Taking Vicki's cue, every call is answered in a timely fashion and the caller is informed that we will be returning calls between 2-4 pm M-F. The callers are aware of our system and when they will receive a return call. No more hang ups or frustrated clients wondering why we aren't available to answer the phone. We are instantly emailed any phone messages which also proves as a valuable internal call record.

GOAL: (1) Identify emergency issues (ie: website or email down) and handle immediately; (2) eliminate non-urgent calls to our personal cell phones.

SOLUTION: We have a server monitoring program that notifies us immediately if the server is not responding. Our answering service has strict instructions to put through emergency situations to our cell phones. (We identify emergency situations as a client's email or website being down.) This way our clients can speak with us instantly in this situation. Additionally, client's aren't given our personal cell phone numbers so they won't be able to call our cells directly in the future - as is possible if we call the client from our cell phone (caller id).

GOAL: (1) Reduce stress from project time lines not being completed; increase work productivity; (2) no more STRESS!

SOLUTION: The solution revolves around eliminating the stress generated primarily from phone calls. Since the solutions above relate directly to this goal, we have found we are given back the 90% of our work day for project time, which equals less STRESS.

---

Day One Case Study
Today was the first day we enacted Vicki's Action Plan. Strangely enough, just having a plan relieved a lot of stress. Having the tools (message center, plan to call back clients during the time window) to eliminate my number one stress trigger (the phones) was empowering.

We had two instances where the operator attempted to put through clients to our cell phones when it wasn't an emergency situation. It was okay, as I was able to email my contact at the company to eliminate this from happening again. It's important that the operators stand their ground and let our client's know if it's not one of the emergency situations, they can wait for a call back during the predetermined window. Since we get email records of all client messages, we are fully aware of whom is calling and what it is in regards to. I did my best not to jump the gun and call before the 2pm time. It was hard, but I did good complying to my own rules (okay Vicki's rules!).

Call counts: 17 calls total; 85% of all calls received before 12:00 pm.

I made a point to query our clients during call backs on how the new answering service was working and if they were professional. Every single client I asked commented how professional, courteous and well trained they were. (More stress gone.) Clients weren't upset about the call service; in fact they seemed to be happy that someone answered and that I returned their call during the promised window. Who knew it would be that easy?!

Remarkably as the day went on, I felt stress dissolve and ended up getting a lot of work done. Nothing blew up today which helped. And the time I took to return phone calls was under 40 minutes total, well within my call window. I cannot imagine how many more calls (repeats) we would have received if these clients would have been prompted to leave a message on the machine...

Tomorrow I will report on how things go as I implement a "no looking or responding" email rule - except at 9 am and 1 pm. Let's hope I can do it...

Bobbie Rathjens
Owner, JBR Graphics, Inc.