I was recently at a workshop with about 20 agents. Low and behold their (and my) number one pet peeve is their staff being grumpy when the phone rings. Imagine you are a customer of a local independent agency and the person hates the fact you are calling. How would that make you feel? Why, as agency owners, do we allow the team to huff and puff when that phone rings.
In my perfect agency, the ring tone of the phones would be a cash register and I would banish caller ID. If my team even grumbled about the phone ringing I would write them up. Three write ups lead to termination. We cannot provide ridiculously amazing service if the team frowns when a customer calls.
We have to have the conversation with our team about the phone ringing. The phone ringing is the happiest thing on the planet. Customers and prospects are calling YOU, not your competition. Secondly, what happens when the phone stops ringing? Unemployments sounds icky. We need to be grateful every single time that phone rings.
As the agency leader, if this exists in your agency you need to break it immediately. Don’t run from it, run to it. Your team may think you’re being hard on them but in reality they are being disrespectful to your customers.
