Pre-screening leads??
My partner and I are starting to get a lot of phone calls from our marketing. As you can imagine, a lot of them are junk calls and we spend several hours each week handling those instead of the good ones. We also are missing some calls due to many reasons.
We have discussed what the best way to handle this and we came up with 2 potential solutions. I would really like to get some feedback from others who may have tried either of these strategies or have another idea.
1. Hire an assistant
2. Hire an answering service
Ideally, #1 will provide a much more personalized and “trainable” approach to handling the calls, however, I am afraid that person will eventually run into the same problems we do and that person cannot answer the phone 24/7.
#2 sounds like a better approach, however, we are concerned with the level of politeness and real estate expertise these guys will have. In other words, we will potentially have an 18 yr old who doesn’t know how to spell real estate answering the phone. Will that hurt our chances?
If you have tried either of these approaches, I would really like to hear more and some references to use so I can get some cost perspective.
I appreciate any feedback you guys have.
Thanks,
Brad
ANSWER
Brad,
I have hired an assistant and set her up with internet based phone and fax lines. She takes the calls, pre-screens, and does some research and marketing for me. It is a very personalized response.
I can justify her expense because I also have her running some other businesses like property management, etc. for me. Because I am basically using her full-time, I have considered inviting a few other select investors to pool their marketing with mine, and share this trained resource. This trick is to come up with a fair way of dividing the leads.
Phill
UPDATE: We have since added additional full-time assistants and brought on a 24-hr calling service.
