The same question, all day long
Six out of ten calls are not a new customer or a problem: they are the opening hours, the price or the address.
- Every question cuts across somebody who was serving a customer.
- The answer changes depending on who picks up.
- Outside opening hours nothing is answered, not even the simplest thing.
- Whoever asks the price hangs up and calls somewhere else.
- Nobody knows what gets asked most or what needs explaining.
- It is answered without anyone looking up from the counter.
- The answer is the same whoever gives it and at whatever hour.
- It answers the same at eleven at night as it does mid-morning.
- Whoever asks the price stays, and often books.
- You can see which question repeats, which is exactly the one missing from your website.
Answering from this afternoon
No manual to write: it is the information you already give twenty times a day.
Answering is only the start
A well-answered question hardly ever ends at the answer: it ends in an appointment, a document or a person.
The same five questions, five sectors
The vocabulary changes, the problem does not. Go into yours and see which ones they are.
How much a colour costs, who does it and whether there is a slot this week.
Whether there is a terrace, whether dogs are allowed and whether a table is free on Saturday.
How much a service costs, whether there is a courtesy car and whether theirs is ready.
Whether they take their insurance, what the first visit includes and what to bring.
What the owner is asking, what the fees are and when it can be viewed.
What changes when the counter stops ringing
These numbers come from businesses where half the calls were the same question.
The usual questions — hours, terrace, whether the kitchen is open — no longer reach the team.
Speciality coffee shop · MadridOn the day of a breakdown we got forty identical calls. Not one reaches the office now.
Manager of 300+ homes · MadridWhat everybody asks
Five quick answers to get the doubts out of the way.
Start with your five questions
Tell it what you answer every day and this very afternoon the counter stops ringing.
The phone causes more trouble
If this one rings a bell, these three will too. Each is solved on its own.