Should you Outsource Your Customer Service? Here’s a Complete Guide

When the phone rings, if you're the one that picks it up, you're the one that's going to close that lead. 78% of customers will go with the first responder, especially in the home service industry. Welcome to jobbers, masters of Home Service, a podcast for home service pros by home service pros. We are in sunny Las Vegas. Today we're talking about outsourcing your office staff and hiring virtual assistants. I'm Adam Sylvester. Today's guests are Richard Grove and Michelle Jepsen, both of you.

Welcome to the show. Thanks, Adam. Good to be. Here. Yeah, super excited to be here. Good. Yeah, me too. Michelle, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about you and what you do. Sure. So I'm Michelle and with Jill's office. We're a virtual receptionist for home service pros and so love just helping to

answer their phones. And I'm also the chief growth officer at the collective, which is a community of individuals that are trying to help level up the home service industry just through various collaboration initiatives. I'm Richard, and I'm probably best known for my role at Wall Control. We're a wall-mounted storage and organization system that goes in any room in the house or garage to keep you organized.

And also through my years of kind of growing our house brands, I've learned some tips and tricks for helping other small business owners scale and grow their business. So I run my own small consultancy consultant, small business where I help other small business owners break through roadblocks that gave me stumbling blocks for years. And this is a perfect topic because this one stumbles a lot of people.

Yeah. Richard, Michelle, thanks for being here. I really appreciate you guys, a lot of knowledge. So let's get into it. So when should our listeners start entertaining the idea of even hiring a virtual assistant or outsourcing their office staff in general? What are some tips for them?

So when I think about outsourcing your customer service, I have to first address the fact that there's a definite fear factor and it's very valid because your business is kind of like your baby and just like you wouldn't hire anyone off the street to come babysit your baby. At the same time you want to make sure that whoever is answering your phones or doing other parts of your customer service is someone that you can trust.

And so there's a lot of trepidation in finding someone that can effectively do that for your business. That's very valid filling. But at the same time, it's also a very important thing to outsource because you can't keep all the balls in the air. And customer service, especially in the home service industry, is so important to be available whenever people need you. When the phone rings, if you're the one that picks it up, you're the one that's going to close that lead.

78% of customers will go with the first responder, especially in the home service industry. And so it's just such a vital thing to have in your business and something that you really need from the beginning and then just to grow and expand as your business grows.

Yeah, yeah. I'll say from my experience, my personal experience and the businesses that I've worked with, there's so many business owners and operators for businesses that aren't even that little anymore who are answering all the questions themselves, anything that gets ends up getting escalated to them and they bear the burden of all of that. And one that's time consuming, and two, I think it's more emotional for the owner or the operator.

You almost take these things personally when someone says you didn't finish the job, they're talking about the company, but you read it, you feel it, it's cortisol going through your veins, and when that's happening, you're not performing your best. And so for me personally, through the brands I've done, when I start feeling that I know this needs to be, I'm no longer the right person for this job, I need to get it off boarded. And to your point, people are afraid,

they're scared. The thing I've learned, especially talking about VAs and these folks that we trust with it, they're a lot of times smarter than me. They've really impressed me with the ability to kind of navigate it and get the job done well. So I would say don't be afraid. If you're feeling this stress, it's time for you to start unloading it yourself and just consider what that

next step might be, which I'm sure we're going to get into here. I mean, I think for me, the next step for me was just starting to document, and if you've already done this, great, but start to document all of the typical customer responses you see. We literally call 'em canned responses with the platforms, WeWork, start getting these together, start getting them organized and just plan on someone in the future being able

to pull those. And then once you have that in place, you can kind of take the next step, find a ticketing platform, start looking for va, start looking for phone support solutions, another big sticking point and challenge for us. So just start taking steps in that direction and you'll find that you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results you get. Your customers will be happier and you will feel better and perform better As the owner operator.

A lot of business owners, they're out cutting grass in the beginning or they're doing whatever they're doing, and so they have to turn the men engine off real fast, answer the phone. In that case, you really want to have it be answered by somebody else, right?

Because not in the mindset of booking a phone call and talking to a client, but then even once they're out of the field and they're working mostly on the business, not in the business, you don't want to become the chief own answerer either. And so for the peak of the journey for the business owner is not answering the phone. I think when you're in the field it feels like, oh, if I could just be in the office and answer the phone all day, but that's not really it either.

So it sounds like what we're talking about is appropriate for both kinds of business owners, the ones that are earlier in their journey, still cutting the grass, and then also ones they're in the office, they shouldn't be answering the phone either. Right? Yeah, definitely. And you both bring up some really good points, Richard, when you were talking about just the stress, the cortisone levels, again, it goes back to your business being your baby. So you take everything so much more personal.

And it's so funny how many of our clients will talk about, they didn't realize the amount of stress that is released just because they're not that first line of defense, both with just booking jobs, but also when there's customer complaints. Because. There's that the customer's really heightened and they're upset. And then if you're taking that extra personally because it's your business, and so you have these two really heightened emotions going on in both ends.

So if you have a third party that can step in and be that mediator, the customer calls down and then you can be more calm when you need to address that issue. And so it's a really effective way to save stress and mental space by not having to use all, not having to have a decision fatigue syndrome by just everything that happens on your phone.

Answering the phone takes a while too, callbacks while you're talking, you get a voicemail, call them back. Then it keeps happening and voicemails and texts. It is a full-time job. What are some options out there for outsourcing? Someone's listening, they don't want to answer the phone anymore. What are their options? Sure. I'll let you jump. In. Okay. I'll jump. In there. I can take more of the email in ticketing side of it,

and I'm curious about the phone answering. Full disclosure, we need help with this and we talked about this before we came on. She's going to get a customer as soon as you walk out of here. So I'm learning just like everybody listening, so please the floor. Thank you. Well, there's three options and they're all good options. They all have benefits, and then there's also drawbacks with each option. And the first is to hire someone in-house to get a CSR, get an office manager.

And the benefit of that is you have their full 40 hours a week and they can do more than just answer the phones. So they can also do paperwork or invoicing or other parts of your business that needs help in office. More. The admin side of things, the admin side of things. Exactly. And so that's really beneficial. Then the other option is to use some sort of agency to find a good VA for your business.

And the benefit of that is you can find someone specifically assigned to your business, but you don't have to deal with all the stress of hr, payroll taxes, trying to figure out benefits, the training, the hiring, which isn't another headache that you have to deal with as a business owner. So that can be really beneficial if you want someone, but you don't want to deal with that headache. And then the third option is to do something like an answering service where

they are 24 7, which is a nice benefit. So you're capturing all those calls, and again, you don't have to deal with the hr, but then they're not going to be there necessarily to do the other paperwork and

other things in your office. So I always think the best scenario is a hybrid situation where you work up, maybe you start when you first start getting out in the field and you need someone that can just help cover the gaps when you're on a ladder or maybe you're on the phone with another client and you want to make sure that no calls fall through the gaps.

Paying a couple hundred bucks a week for an answering service to capture those calls and maybe on the nights and weekends can be really beneficial. And then as your business grows, then you maybe have the money to justify getting someone in office or a virtual admin. There's a lot you can even hire in the Philippines, and then you have someone who can do know your business a lot better, the details of it and be able to handle all those things.

But then it's still recommended to have an answering service or something that is 24 7 just so that you're not losing any of those customers. Because we live in an era now where 24 7 is really the expected norm. It's not really going above and beyond, and not even just with the emergency types of home service businesses like your plumber and your water restoration, things like that. But also just with water, or excuse me,

with window cleaning and carpet cleaning. I mean, if someone gets on your website at 2:00 AM in the morning and there's someone live there to chat and get them booked, you're going to secure that deal or calls on Saturday and Sunday where your VA isn't going to be working, making sure there's someone there to answer the call. It's really good hybrid situation to try to get both.

Okay. So you are a fan of the hybrid situation you have. Does Jill's office, for example, do they have clients that only use JU office? They answered. Does that happen? Yeah, for sure. We have a variety that just only use us. Some of our clients have phone phobia. They're free of the phone, they don't want to answer it. A lot of them. And where it really works really beautifully is if they do have an admin and then we're just the overflow. Yeah, okay.

So admin's already on the phone and so the call rings to Jill's office and they answer it so it doesn't go to voicemail basically. Exactly, right. Voicemail avoidance is what we. Want. Yes. Okay. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, well, I just, curiosity is really, so how does it work? Say, do you guys have educational pieces for the folks that answer the phone and they could take basic, for instance, I'm trying to think about it for my own business.

Someone calls and they're looking for installation instructions or little things like that that are kind of low hanging fruit and pretty standardized, which we call the can responses. Is that something they take care of too, versus just taking the call and. Take a message. Back? Yeah, exactly. Right. So I guess how deep into details of a business can you guys get?

Sure. One thing that makes Jill's office a little bit different than your generic answering service is we say we're answering service. That's not really an answering service because we like to progress the relationship forward and not just be a glorified voicemail. We follow the 80 20 principle. And so just like you're saying with the canned responses, about 80% of the time people are going to be asking the same questions on the

phone. So we can definitely handle those kinds of things, but the other 20% that might be a little more technical or specific to that customer, those we can take a message and then escalate them to a tech or the owner or whatever it may be, or transfer the call or send a message and then have the owner respond and let us know how to call back and answer. It. You can convert that into say, a ticket that gets an email response as well. Is that okay?

Yeah, we're primarily with the phone, but we do send our messages through our app and also to email, and then you can reply and then we can call them. Back. Okay, perfect. So you guys could convey the answer to the end user. We can. Yes, absolutely. And then shameless jobber plug, we absolutely love jobber. So we have over a hundred receptionists, and I'm not making this up every time I ask them, what's your favorite system to work in? It is a fan favorite. They absolutely love jobber. Really?

Absolutely. Because it's so easy. It's just very intuitive. Are you guys in jobber or. Just Yeah, you can get in there. Can. We can do requests. We can schedule jobs. And just the way the calendar's laid out, the Jills absolutely love it. So that is nice too, is that we can actually get jobs booked. The Jills, the. Reception call the Jills. Yeah. You have a hundred. So basically client calls into your company, they could get one of those 100 people.

They could, yeah, because it's 24 7 staffed, and so we want to make sure that you get a friendly voice that's going to answer, that's live. And so we do have deals, we do kind of organize in pods where you can be specialized in certain industry or specialized in a certain system. So it does help to make it a little bit of smaller scale where they know a little bit more about your company. Tell me more about that. I'm curious.

Yeah, so how it works. I mean, when a Jill first starts, she's more a generalized Jill, so she can take just more scheduling type of calls that we talk about, but then as she advances and gets better, we train her in more systems such as Jobber, and so then she can do more things on the phone.

Richard, Michelle, this is a great conversation. I'm going to pause it for a minute. Talk about jobber. We're talking about customer service, the experience and how good it can be and should be for our clients. I think Jobber helps with that because as soon as they call in, they become a lead or request, and then you can immediately send 'em a quote, even if you're in their driveway, you can bam send it to 'em.

There's an automated follow-up sequence, and then once they approve it, they get a confirmation and then they get Jobber sends 'em a booking text when their job is scheduled, and then the invoice, it just flows so easily. So the customer experience is solid from A to Z, and that's why I like jobber so much. Michelle, what do you think?

Oh, yeah, I mean, customer service is king. Really, the competition right now is so fierce with the internet that really it's customer service that makes the difference.

So when you have a powerful tool like jobber that from the moment the phone's answered, and then right after you get that text confirmation, that appointment scheduled, and then on the way text, and then after the estimate's been done, getting that invoice, it helps not only make your job so much easier trying to keep all the balls in the air, but it also makes the customer experience amazing and gives that impression that

your business has everything together and they're going to take real care of you. Yeah, absolutely. If you want to try Jobber today, you need to, should go to jobber.com/podcast deal. New users can get exclusive discount and start using jobber so that it makes your customer service king.

So I'm seeing the benefits of hiring a company like yours, especially as overflow voicemail avoidance. What if someone wanted to hire, just what's the difference between hiring you guys and a full-time va? What are the pros and cons? Yeah, that's a great question. So a full-time va, they're going to know the ins and outs of your business just better because they're helping one business all day long.

So they're going to learn more of the guts of it, probably beyond canned responses, whereas within answering service, there is going to be a cap to our knowledge of what we can provide on the phone. So what's nice about it is just that availability. Google local service ads. You. Know, need the phone answered and you need it answered, people call. So having an answering service in place to be able to capture those can be

really effective. But again, they're not going to maybe know how to do everything that a VA could do. We don't get into very far into the invoicing and things like that. Well, we can call on past due invoices, but we're not necessarily going to go into the meets of everything in jobber, whereas an admin or someone in office could more do that. So it's a little bit more surfacey, but at the same time, it's that availability of 24 7 coverage. I'd also say it's cheaper, right? Cheaper.

Cheaper there. Cheaper economic savings. Cheaper than a full-time VA and VAs gets sick just like anybody else does. And so if you have a pool of a hundred, you're a little more consistent in terms of answering the phone than if your person just might be sick today and no one's answer the phone. Right?

Exactly. So yeah, they give you more personal, they know your business, but the employee issues that have been around for hundreds of years are still the same with a virtual assistant, more or less. Sure. Yeah. You got a little bit more of the HR headache of it all. And I like Richard.

I like that the idea of if you're paying for Google local service ads or Google guaranteed whatever you want to call it, and that's a juicy, beautiful, just precious lead, and no one answers or God forbid they answer and they're in a bad mood and hello, Google knows all that. And so you want to set yourself up if you're going to pay for those leads, you want that phone answered immediately and you want it answered professionally.

And I can jump in on the side of, we are more an email heavy business, so that's where we're 80% email. And so our strategy's very similar, except we're not the service provider. We're kind of in the middle trying to figure it out. So all the business owners I work with, they all for way too long, were answering all their emails in their own outlook.

Literally it was they would read in sales@company.com to their outlook, and then they would hire someone, they would read it in as well, someone else would, and it would get very confusing and jumbled up. So from my vantage point, the brands I've worked with and helped, what I've done with them is I've taken all that and I put it in a ticketing system so that it comes in, it gets ticketed, it gets assigned to someone, and that's someone that gets assigned to,

is usually always the owner or the operator to start with. That way they're getting familiar with the customer support operates. It's also either getting assigned to there if they have a dedicated customer support person. And then once they start building up a history of cases and the can responses,

that's when we typically would suggest them to find a va. And that, like you were saying, is super simple now, and I can connect people with different agencies that do this, but there's already VAs vetted, trained, skilled in all these different areas, and you just use the VA through that service. You don't increase your headcount, you don't increase anything.

And so what we would normally do is bring on one of those, create a different agent or an additional agent seat for that va, and we would just serve them up questions that we know there's an absolute can response to that. They just have to go find it and respond to it. And then as they get better at that, they're going to learn the product line a little bit better or the service, whatever it is, and you can keep increasing the complexity of these cases that get assigned to

them. And that's how, that's nine times out of 10, the companies I work with, how we get into this and start scaling it up, but it's really good to have a phone support plugin now that I can integrate into this. Again, I'm usually working on a business that's heavier on the email side, not on the phone side. So it's nice to hear that there could be a marriage between those two things.

A lot of our listeners are thinking, well, that sounds great, but how can I train these people? I mean, you can't just put somebody in the seat and assume it. And so what are some tips for, and it sounds pretty similar, whether you have a VA or you have Jill's office or the training is going to be pretty similar, so you have to have some standard operating procedures right on like, okay, if they call and ask, Hey, do you guys do power washing? No, we do not,

but our friends over here do give them their phone number. That's pretty simple. What are some other ways that you recommend our listeners train their remote staff? Sure. Yeah. So I think there's three main parts, and the first part is customer service and how to actually talk on the phone. There's an art and a science to it, And especially our young generation,

they don't know how to talk on the phone. They know how to text, they can send emojis, but they don't necessarily know how to talk on the phone. So it's really important that there's training done to teach people how to actually talk on the phone. And there's an emotional intelligence there. We train our receptionists in personalities, so we train 'em in the disc formula. So the way you're going to talk to a dominant personality is a little bit different than an influencer. We use animals.

So we have a lion and then there's a dolphin and there's a golden retriever and owl. And so we teach 'em how to recognize them on the phone and then steer the conversation a little bit different according to their personality. Also, phone voice. So if I answer, thank you for calling a, B, C, carpet cleaning, how can I help you today? Thank you for calling a, B,

C carpet cleaning, how can I help you today? I said that the exact same way, but you can hear the smile and my voice goes up higher and it's a friendly, warmer voice, but there's training that needs to be done for that phrasing on the phone. So using positive language instead of negative language, how to effectively ask for an email. People guard their email almost as ties their social security number. I know I do. And so if you just say, can you give me an email address?

A lot of times you're going to get a no. Whereas if you say, what's the best email to send this estimate to? Okay, now there's something in it for me. I know why I want to give it to you, and I know that I want that, so I'm going to give it to you. And it's just little phrasing, things like that. Maybe you have a maintenance plan and rather than just saying, Hey,

do you want to join my membership program? What if instead you said, oh, are you going to pay regular pricing or membership pricing today? And now I'm intrigued. Well, what's the membership pricing? I want that. And so it's just the phrasing on how to get customers to warm up to you and to give you what you want on the phone. And so that's the first step. And the nice thing again about using an answering service is they take care of that training so you don't have to worry about it.

And then the second part is learning the system. So learning jobber or a fresh desk or what other systems that you're working in. And again, if you're working with an agency or some sort of answering service, a lot of times they'll take care of that training for you. And. Then the third step is just training them in your specific business. And this is where there can be a lot of overwhelm, again, because your business so well, but you don't know how to explain it to someone.

The better something, the harder it is to learn how to explain it sometimes. And so there can be overwhelmed there. But again, I know with our processes, we take over a million calls a year so we know what questions are going to come up, and we've just created a very simple intake form that takes 15 to 20 minutes to fill out saying, okay, you're a landscaper. Here's the answers that we need to know for your business.

And then we can customize your scripts according to your business, but it doesn't take a lot of training from you because we already know what's going to probably come up and then we can always add to it along the way, but it can at least get us started.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. And it's so funny because I'm on the other side of the fence and I'm, how can I get the brands I work with to put together what they need to give you

so you can train your side of the fence? And for me, it all starts with documenting what you're doing for your current customer support and thinking, again, going back to the email, thinking about what a standard canned response would look like, not getting too into the weeds and thinking about what would work for the largest audience and then indexing that in a way that makes sense so you can import it in and create searchable system for whoever your VA is going to be or

whatever service you use to go pull that. And that's a very important piece of the puzzle. And then the other cool thing that we've seen when you bring on a good va, and we've rarely ever seen one that wasn't good, that they can go back and search these cases and learn the product line themselves, so they learn so much faster than you think and learn the product so much

quicker and more thoroughly than you would ever expect. So you end up being able to unload a whole lot more than you thought you were going to be able to do. When we first did it, I was like, well, they'll be able to answer shipping questions and installation questions, but I'm going to have to answer everything else or someone's going to have to

answer. And no, man, they figured it out. They're like, well, we saw a case back in November and they look like they asked this nuanced question, so I went and pulled that and this was the response. And then you can learn from that and to the point of a VA getting sick and that sort of thing. One thing I'll say, when you work with whatever agency you're working with, at least on our side of the fence, definitely make sure there's redundancy there.

So make sure you're not just training one VA and with one agency, make sure if they go on vacation that there's backfill there. I don't need everybody to be a student, but I do need redundancy on your low ball, easy, low hanging free questions. Yeah, I do think that the training is understated. So I think that the fact that with hiring someone like Jill's office and

they're basically professional salespeople. I mean, they're good at connecting with the client, they're good at bringing them in and not letting them off the hook, and they know how to ask the right questions and they know how to engage. And if someone's really gruff on the phone, then be gruff. If they're really happy, then be happy. They're really solid. Hey, let's be quick then. Okay, let's be quick. And they match. I'm guessing they can match behavior, so that's not easy to train.

No. And I'm sitting here thinking I wouldn't know how to train a customer support person like that. So that's totally value added right there. I don't have to know psychology anymore to train someone how to answer our phones. We can just hire a place like yours. So yeah.

Michelle, I want to ask you about recording. So if someone hires a va, then they can listen to every single phone call, I assume in any kind of VIP system they're using with Jill's office internally. Are you guys monitoring and listening to phone calls? Can I listen to the phone calls as a user curious? Yeah, that's a great question. So we definitely have lots of matrix for quality control. So we record the calls.

We have a hundred point audit scorecard that the Jill's have to get at least a 96% passing score to stay employed there on their average. So there's a lot done there. And then there's continual training along their whole journey.

But with the recordings in particular, we do service some healthcare clients and with HIPAA laws and then with credit cards processing that we do or credit cards that we take with PCI compliance, the way our system's currently programmed, we don't have a way to record or share those recordings, but anyone can record them on their own with their own VoIP system because they're just forwarding their calls over and then so they can still have access to all of them.

Interesting. Okay. Okay. So upon request, can you get one or no? Yeah, sure. If you have one, we can look into it. We can download it and get it over to you. So yeah. Hey, podcast listeners, are you already using Jobber to power your business? If you refer a business to Jobber, you'll both get rewarded with three free months. All you have to do is share your unique referral code from the refer friend page terms and conditions apply.

I want to reiterate the customer service experience because I think that it's so important when a client has a problem, their grass is too high or their toilet's leaking or whatever the case may be, the first thing they do is they search lawn mowing in their area and then they call that first company and they just pray and hope that the first company answers the phone, solves their problem, they can move on with their life.

And as soon as they get in, this first one didn't answer or they answer in their complete buffoons or the second one didn't answer, and they just keep going and they get more frustrated, frustrated, frustrated because they just want to freaking answer, solve their problem. And so I think a good customer service experience is when they answer the phone, hello, they're professional, oh, maybe this company can solve my problem,

is what they're really hoping. And then when the csr, whoever's answering the phone, walks them through this customer experience in a professional manner, and then they solve the problem, whether they book the call or they book an appointment for a sales call, whatever the case may be, they can hang up and say, huh, they solved my problem. The grass hasn't been cut yet. They solve my problem. They're not, they're calling around anymore. That is, that's really, really important. You ask things.

So important, the to-do list wasn't to have the grass cut, it was to make the call to have the grass cut. That's right. So you can check that off the to-do list, and that's huge. You've moved the ball into their side of the court and that was the goal. Exactly. I mean, I had a personal experience with this just a couple of weeks ago. I was calling around to get a new sprinkler system installed in my home, went down Google first seven, I called no answer. Oh my gosh. Seven. Yes. It was awful.

And so I just wanted someone to pick up the phone, but then once we got to, I got someone to actually answer. Of course, that's so exciting. And then get the job booked or get the estimate booked. But another thing that they kind of missed there is that none of them followed up, not a single one of those seven. And so again, this is like an $8,000 job. Good. Thing for you is you get a lot of leads doing this. So you could be frustrated, but you're. A really good point.

But the customer experience and the one I actually went with, he actually used Jobber and just the fact that you get that text, so first they answer the phone and then you get that text confirmation that the appointment's scheduled and it just creates a really good customer experience along the whole way that they, they've got their crap together. They know what they're doing and you feel taken care of.

Michelle, I do want to ask you about, because you mentioned that all seven of those people didn't answer and they didn't call you back. It seems like one of the best opportunities for outsourcing is outbound phone calls, like calling all those people back, missed calls, voicemails. Talk to us about that. Yeah, for sure. Well, the fortune's in the follow-up as we know, but I guarantee 95% or more of your competition is not doing it.

And so there's a huge opportunity gap for a lot of businesses, but opportunity there, if you're the one that actually is doing the follow-up to secure more of those jobs and those customers, and the hard thing about follow-up is it's not a fire to put out. And so it gets pushed to the end of your, to-do list. It's. Not urgent. You're right, it's, it's not urgent, but it's important and it's hard to get those done sometime.

And so that's a great thing to outsource because then you have someone who their job is to do that important task that isn't urgent, but very important. So them following up with leads, if you did miss a call, making sure that they get called back, following up once they've done the estimate. I finished my story about the sprinkler. I ended up getting three quotes, but not a single one of them called me back and I had questions. I wasn't clear on things. Right. Well, you spend that money.

Exactly. You want. That reassurance, the follow-up's just a test too sometimes just to make sure you. Get followed up with. Yeah, I mean two weeks later they didn't call me back and I am a customer who I want to pay. I want to spend my money, I just need to find the right person. And so following up to check in and see if there's more questions or Hey, can we get you booked for service. Support if they won't follow up to take your money? Good luck. Getting to fix a problem.

Is exactly it. You're sending messages, the whole journey, emotional messages on how you do business. So I want to do business with someone that I know is going to be responsive. And then the third thing is following up with previous customers, and this is huge. We have a jobber client that just had to start calling yesterday on his list of who he did ation for last year. And so we're going through calling them all again and then, oh,

awesome opportunity. Do you want to add on seeding or fertilization as well? When we come back out there, it's really great too for our clients that are very seasonal. So maybe you do landscaping in the spring, summer, fall, but in the winter you do holiday lights. Okay, well do your clients know, so give us a list. Let's give them a call and get them booked for your holiday lights. So there's just tons of opportunities there to increase your revenue.

And a lot of people are leaving that on the table. A lot of those outbound phone calls are worth $0 and some of them are worth $10,000. You just don't know which ones they are, so you have to call all of them. Exactly. It's true. I mean, we called someone a client that hadn't used them for five years just a couple of weeks ago and got them booked for $3,000 jobs. You just never know. I love that. I love that. Richard, Michelle, this is a great conversation.

I'm going to boil it down to three actionable takeaways here. Number one, be the first person to answer the phone. 78% of people book with the first company who answered the phone, so be that first company. Number two is you want more than just someone who's just taking messages. You want someone who's going to progress the call forward and ultimately book the call. Number three is outsource follow-ups.

The fortune is found in the follow-up to make sure that you're either outsourcing those follow up phone calls, texts, or doing it somehow. Make sure that you're following up on every single quote. Awesome. I have one more for you if you've got a second. Yeah. So something I found in this age of VAs with business owners and operators that I'm recommending to every business owner and operator is go ahead and have two

personal emails for business. So for instance, if I'm richard@wallcontrol.com, also beRich@wallcontrol.com, and as you go throughout your days, look for opportunities to use that secondary email for less personal sensitive information that you're signing up for or that you're onboarding with. I don't want the hardest thing to let go of is your personal inbox to a va, but if you can let go of some of that, you can clear up a ton of space just sifting through emails.

A lot of times the inbox becomes a to-do list. You clear out some of that. So if it's not personal banking or not personal banking, but if it's not sending banking resets, accounts receivable, accounts payable, things like very personal, I'll keep on my main one, but else will go on this other one. And even if I'm not using a VA to manage it today, I know that I can jettison that one if I get overwhelmed and I don't have to worry about anything personal flowing in there or that's critical to the

sensitivities of the business. So I highly recommend doing that. Even if you don't use it today, set it up, sign up things with that email, and then have it forward to your main inbox. And then when you're so overwhelmed, you got this nice little pocket of emails you can outsource. Good idea. I have two emails. I second that. I love that. Thanks guys. This is a great conversation. Thanks for being here. This has been so fun. It's. Been our pleasure. I know mine. Yeah. Michelle.

How do people find out more about you? Sure. Yeah. So if you go to jill's office.com, you can learn more about Jill's office and also grab a free demo to hear what our virtual receptionist actually sound like. Richard, what about you? Yeah, you can find me on Instagram and on Twitter. My handle is Mr. Wall storage. You can also find me on my own personal website, consultant small business.com, and you can hunt me down at wall control if you're looking for me there too.

So any of those places, just reach out and happy to respond to any questions and take the conversation from there. Cool. You guys are doing work that matters. Keep it up. Thank you. Thank you, Adam. And thank you for listening. I hope you heard something that will make your business more profitable and more efficient and help you outsource some of the daily tasks. I'm Adam Sylvester, your host. You can find me@adamsylvester.com.

Your team and your clients deserve your very best, so go give it to 'em.