Wise Decisions
Office Manager Sets the Protocal

By Debra K. Traverso

Copyright 2011 by Debra Traverso, OneCall
All rights reserved in all media.

The content of this article may be forwarded in full without special permission provided it is used for nonprofit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given. For all other purposes, contact Debra Traverso at dtraverso@makejustonecall.com.

If you know Katharine Pickering at Coldwell Banker, you know her to be vibrant, organized, successful.  She is the sole manager of the greater Beverly regional office.

She is also a loyal customer and fan of Mobile Manager (MM).   She told us recently that her office is so skilled in the use of MM because she is “persistent in proselytizing it with my own agents.” 

She started mastering Mobile Manager “because I was managing multiple offices.”   There’s nothing better to link offices together, she says.  What’s more, her offices were “able to chase me down no matter where I was.”   And, when she would call other offices that did not use Mobile Manager, “it was like talking in the Dark Ages.”  So, she quickly insisted everyone in her office use MM.  She doesn’t even let the office receptionist hand out cell phone numbers.

She says it’s “very frustrating to me when people don’t use their extensions. ”  (With Mobile Manager’s Find-Me-Follow-Me feature, you already have several extensions that identify the locations where calls can be directed, such as your office or cellular phone.  An extension can ring at one phone or multiple phones one after another.  Each extension is represented by a two-digit number.)   Katharine promotes use of ext. 31 or 30 all the time.  With ext. 31, callers have the option to touch 0 to reach you at your cell phone, and ext. 30 callers will be forwarded directly to your cell phone).   “I can’t imagine,” she says, “why people aren’t more service-oriented and aware that customers don’t want to hang up and redial.”

When agents push back and say, “I always use cell phone” she half-jokingly reminds them that “sometimes I don’t want to talk to you.  I don’t have time for a conversation.  I’d rather NOT press ‘0’ to go through and talk to you unless it is urgent.”  Instead, she gets to leave a message, knowing that they won’t pick up and take up her valuable time.

To those agents who say that they “don’t want to forward to cell because I’ll get too many calls,” she tells them they’d be surprised how much people self-screen.

She also won’t let anyone put more than one number on their business card.  “A lot of people have four numbers.  That’s crazy,” she says.  “There is no way I am going to call more than one number.  What makes agents think that the average customer would?  They’re as busy as we are.”

Wise words – Thanks Katharine!


Copyright 2011 by Debra Traverso, OneCall
All rights reserved in all media.

 
 
Order Now