My son, P.J. claims that he has the best closing rate. ( Of course, he claims a lot of other things that ain't true too ) I feel that I do pretty good on the phone myself. A lot of the calls are handled by my daughter, Stacy, but the most calls are handled by my wife Jessica. To be perfectly honest, my wife gets all of the crap calls. Dead dog on the side of the road, robin fell out of its nest, dog dragged in a Tyrannosaurs Rex, you know the kind.

Here's my question: Have you gained an opinion on who the customer would rather have answer the phone? Is your answer sexist? ( Would a woman rather have a man answer and would a man really rather have an intelligent woman answer? ) I must warn you that I already have a preconceived notion. As K9 would say, let her rip!

Hands down, the person performing the work, should be the one taking the call....

No one, that has worked for me, can answer the question better or faster than me !

LT makes a very good point that I never thought of when I made this post. Both my son and daughter are licensed technicians and have done it all. While my wife has not, she has been with me from the start and has been on more jobs, probably, than many of you newer techs. Thanks for bringing that up, LT, very good point!

A sort of a bond is sometimes established with a perspective customer when speaking of the initial contact call. And as we all know some calls can end up resulting in a considerable amount of time being spent on the phone.. I dont know how many times a customer after the job has been sold will ask if you will be the one coming out on the job.

Then there are those that dont care who handles the service call as long as it is handled quickly.

An experienced phone interviewer can get most of the facts as long as the right questions are asked and then answered honestly and with some accuracy by the perspective customer.All of this information provides you with the anticipated equipment or materials needed to resolve the job. If some things arent shared or somehow misinformation is given, you may end up going back to your base of operations to get something. Thus lost time and money.

Some times also when a call is taken by one person and given to another some pieces of the puzzle may be lost or omitted causing
a bit of a mix up in communications between the parties.

But we all learn as we grow to anticipate as many scenarios as our experience has taught us, to be prepared the best we can for most any job.

Multi tasking is second nature to most of us after many years of field service.

My wife has been answering my phones for almost as long as i have been doing the control work, she has never done a job except for go pick up animal or she would jump in there with myself and my employees on the clean outs when I was doing them. she has a 80 to 85% sales rate on first time calls. she knows the work even though she has never done most of it. she can tell you what the problem is most of the time, I guess answering phones for 30 years will do that. When she gets a person that is being a know it all or the job is a little rough to figure out on the phone she will have me deal with it. We are the only 2 that will sell jobs. any one else just answers the phone and directs the call to where it needs to go.

So I do not go with the working the field concept but do go with absolute knowledge of the work. In my area a woman's voice that is pleasant and professional with a understanding of the business is a absolute plus. This is based on many years of compliments on how my wife handles her self and business wanting to hire her. the only time it is not is when we get a man that has a power hard on, then I think a man is needed with hard know how. then I have no problem of telling him he needs to shut up and listen to what I am going to do because he knows jack squat about what needs to be done. and most of the time that sells the job on him but I will loose the job on the rest LOL

Paul I bet your wife can out sell all of you if she is in the mindset to. she has been talking to customers for a long time. she knows what they are going to ask before they ask, and already has a way to deal with it. your son and you well it will be like me, it's all be on your mood. lets face it Most of us in this business has well alpha personalities no problem speaking our minds and tell some one where they can get off the ship if we need to LOL so to the majority of my customers that is well scared, or upset at the situation they are in and have no idea what to do or how to do it a pleasant female voice with knowledge of the work and a understanding of what the customer is feeling. is the best solution, on the hard to answer question customers then a field person with the same pleasant voice and understanding of the customers feelings is needed, then there is my favorite the CEO that is use to shouting orders and know it all then that is where the alpha field person needs to step in deal with it, just do with a smile LOL

so I guess there is no one fits all.

I think there are too many variables to say for certain. As long as the person answering the phone is fairly knowledgeable and courteous I think things will go fine.

Personally, I hate to get the feeling I'm being "sold" anything. I'd rather not get a salesman on the phone when I'm looking to get a job done. Salesmen are right up there on the credibility scale with lawyers in my book. As soon as I have the feeling I'm getting a sales job I'm unlikely to commit to anything.

I know I could do a better job on the phone. One of the problems I have is I really don't like talking on the phone and I think it shows. Some calls go better than others so I'm always learning and working on it.

All things being equal, I do think more people relate better to a woman's voice; there's probably evidence to support that. In our case, I am much more knowledgeable, but Laura can definitely do well.

Since so many of our initial contacts are the wives I, too, think a knowledgeable woman has a definite advantage for the first contact call. Now that said, since so many of us are sole proprietors without the wife or significant others answering the phone it is almost a must for the client to connect with the service provider.

I have to differ with most of the posts on this one. I answer 85% of the calls, and one of my techs answers the other 15%.
We have at least 10 competitors down here, and most folks want to know a general cost and what the problem animal might be. I have many folks say that the other companies didn't know what the species causing the problem was, unless they did a site visit. We do most of our quoting on the phone based on years of experience. If we diagnose wrong, free service call.
Personally, I think a lot of guys feel embarrassed to have a female voice on the other end of the line being more knowledgeable than them. ( boy I'll get into trouble for that). Just my humble opinion!

By the way, That's just for your run of the mill sq, raccoon, sk, op, doa, bird job. We always quote a tight range of price, not a set fee.

very interesting topic,

I would love to see how it would play out in the market in Minnesota.

Company credibility, knowledge of animals/bats and confidence of successful job completion are the 3 main things I focus on when talking to a customer..... heck, most of em have already done research about the critter online! better know your critters!

It is not the same market but my best freind down in SC we have talked about this. Even if his price is higher he gets the job. Every time the phone rings in house it rings 3 times then it get transfered strait to his cell and Him being the owner picks up they always feel way more comfortable talking with him Men and Women more then a tech. He owns Shred It 360 a shredding company in 5 years has branched into 2 other states. He swears by answering his phone.

I guess it's just whoever's the best salesperson. It's funny but I have an advantage down here simply because I answer the phone. All of these big companies send you to an answering service and say they will call you back in 30. Some remote salesperson in a different city 200 miles away isn't what people really want. I register my name with Florida Fish and Wildlife. My company starts with a W so I'm always the last one they give out but I'm the only one that answers the phone. 9 times out of 10 they say that they called 2 others but no one answered.

x2; if you can't bring yourself to answer the phone within about 10 seconds, you're in the wrong business. People want that killer opossum gone now.