General Consultant Discussion

Has anyone developed a good way to get information from callers who find you on the web and seem to want to launch into a name/rank/serial number description of every ill that they are having. I tend not to even be able to get their company information before they ramble on to describe their problem. I'm sure this is a ""me"" problem -- just wondering if anyone has come up with a scalable solution such as requiring all contact via some type of web form (I find people will call if they look up your number and want to try for some freebie advice). I probably (thinking out loud) need to stop the people and get all their info if I don't already have it or not proceed any farther.

It's just too easy to jump into solutionism. It feels as though we're being rude to not start answering their direct questions. You're just too damned nice, Wayne. Just be more of an asshole, like me. Or you could use one of our favorite Southern expressions: Well, bless your heart. Or how about doing your Ronnie the Limo Driver impression: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop the clock!

Hey, when did SC start censoring comments? I want my 1st Amendment rights!

@JohnShaver, you didn't type those *'s?! SC did it automatically?!

You know me, I wouldn't hold back! Yes, it did that automatically. Guess we'll need to go through the George Carlin list to see what's appropriate.

Why not outsource this stuff to a call center in India? Let ""Peggy"" do the heavy lifting..................

Gotta love peggy.

I actually noticed censoring in the Dragon Dictation iPhone app, but it doesn't * the whole word; it *'d one letter.

I ususally try to politely stop them at some point and explain our support process and billing practices. If they want to pursue the issue, I send them a one page tech support agreement letter and then require a credit card in advance. (We started the support letter a new client complained and wouldn't pay for an on-site visit that we didn't specifically tell them we bill for our services.)

Much like a doctor, we won't treat someone else's patient until we do a proper intake. We don't perform service without an ROR change and more. We first ask the obvious questions, i.e. why are they calling us and not their reseller, where are they located, how did they find us, are they ready to make a change, what are the issues with their provider, are they on a maintenance plan, etc. We won't talk ""pain"" until we establish an official relationship, complete with ROR change, signed engagement letter, credit application, and generally a site visit. This mininterview usually takes 5-10 minutes tops. If they agree to receive the documents, then we'll keep moving forward. If they don't want them, or delay in signing them, then we're not a good fit.

Anyone care to put a number to the approximate percent of people who call you after finding your name on the web (not a referral) and actually pay anything. I suspect my number is around 1 in 20 --- with probably 4 to 10 incoming calls a week. The upside is that the 1 tends to be $ 2,000+ for an assessment then other project work. Virtually all the people will disappear (aka - ""I have to check with my manager""). And if you ""feed them"" much like stray cats they WILL return.

We just discussed this same topic at our group pow-wow. We are going to create an assessment form as a pre-qual activity. Either we will fill it out with them or direct them to a link to our site (which will feed our Sage CRM, naturally). If they won't fill it out, problem solved. If they can't fill it out but are still interested, there is an opportunity for a paid assessment (depending on client size and complexity). If the can fill it out, we will better understand their needs and if we are a good match.

The biggest mistake I make it to throw my hands up and think that if I give a quick answer that the person will have their problem solved and it will be quicker for me to answer than give the sales pitch. That's almost always wrong. It produces orphans who like stray cats continue to come back and feed off your good nature - until you try to charge. Then they disappear forever. Much better to tell them there's a diagnosis fee and they can pick how quickly they want to be diagnosed. Here's my first draft of an attempt... I store this in Google Apps because I can quickly send it out as a PDF to the email provided by the user. I also want to have authorization in writing (as opposed to taking a credit card via the web) because I would then have (a) their authorization against a chargeback and (b) their acknowledgement about liability and (c) they're responsible for backing up and we take no responsibility for data loss.

I'd say this is also a pretty typical submission. I created a custom landing page in WordPress to collect the data. In the future I'd like as many leads a possible to come in via this web page versus phone (which I find much more time consuming to handle).