Do you guys ever set your phone down ?

[fastfredracing]

I used to be a horrible business man in the sesnse that I was the king of not returned phone calls . It was just impossible at one point in my career
Now that I use text, e mail, and facebook, I am oodles better .
I try to allot myself 3 different times in the day to get back to all my messages. First thing am, right after lunch, and usually , at the end of the day. Once I get home, unless I have something urgent going on, I either leave my phone in the car, or turn it off till morning.
Sometimes, I will answer a few texts, or messages before bed .
Dude was salty at me this am . He texted me at 5:45 last night. I did not get home from work till 7:15, and noticed his message right when I was getting out of my truck. It was nothing urgent,. and I answered him at 9:00 am this morning .
His response, was " well, you never texted me back so.... "
I guess in this modern world, we are supposed to be johnny on the spot with communications.
Problem is, that it is now constantly coming from 7 different places non stop.
How do you guys deal with it?

[recycled sixtie]

I would think that if you work as an indy garage owner then it is up to you how badly you want the business. If you reply right away you will likely get the business if you want it. If you are too busy with other jobs then you get back when you can.

545 pm I think is too late for most people to respond to a call for service.

My now ex tenants sent me an email a couple years ago saying service here. I missed the email and they got more irate on the second email. I caught the second email and addressed their problem.

Nowadays most of everybody wants service right now just like Mickey D's.

My favorite indy shop has no secretary but the boss usually gets back to me within a couple of hours after I leave a message on the answering machine.

[Chocaholic]

I always have my phone with me. We dont have a land line, my wife and I have elderly parents and 2 of our 3 kids are away at college. From a business perspective I pride myself on being responsive and that has always served me well.

I don't mind glancing at the phone periodically or promptly replying to a text or email whenever possible. It's on and within earshot 24/7.

[Baz]

Me personally, I don't keep my cell phone on me but I do keep it in the truck. I don't give the number out to customers except on rare occasions. I have a landline and an answering machine plus email and i always get back to messages within 1 day or less.

If you are in the service business or have (as in Mike's case above) family concerns, you should keep your cell phone on you and be able to take calls as much as possible.

In your case, Fred....that customer probably should have realized that a message to you after 5pm was "after hours" and a response from you the next morning should be considered within' reason, IMHO.

I think every situation is different and you and i both have certain customers we treat differently, depending on their personalities and our relationship with them.

[A930Rocket]

I had a phone for work.

I left it in the truck each night to charge and use the next day.

My off hours were for my family and me.

[stomachmonkey]

Assuming you keep your business phone separate from your personal just set up automated replies.

We have received your message. We read and respond 3 times during the day 9 AM, 12 PM and 5 PM.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

I always have my phone with me. From a business perspective I pride myself on being responsive and that has always served me well.

I don't mind glancing at the phone periodically or promptly replying to a text or email whenever possible. It's on and within earshot 24/7.

Exactly.

As the owner of a small, growing business, I am rarely without my phone. But that is the point...I love what I do and the phone is the primary portal. When I go off line, or my partner does, we make sure our customers can reach the business end of our company.

We are retooling our whole web and media presence because it frankly sucks. Would I rather NOT be connected 24/7?: Sure, as soon as my competitors aren't.

I have made some great deals from Rest Areas along I-85.

[scottmandue]

My wife used to be a 24/7 phone person but she is getting better.
I'm not self employed so when I get to work the cell phone gets turned off and deposited in my desk drawer, I have a land line at my desk and email for work duty (plus I carry a radio so I am on call all day).
Cell phone is on from the time I leave work and the rest evening, then muted and charging when I go to bed, then on for the drive into work. I sometimes check it on my lunch break.
Mind you I keep my personal email minimized on my computer at work in case my wife needs to get in touch with me.

I can see if you are self employed you need to be available during work hours, but I would think you have to turn off the phone and have some personal time or you will go nuckin futs.

[look 171]

Originally Posted by A930Rocket

I had a phone for work.

I left it in the truck each night to charge and use the next day.

My off hours were for my family and me.

Br very careful with that If I were you. They will break in, take your phone, talk to their girl friends while driving into Canada then they get in an accident and you are liable for all that crap. Dont leave your phone in the car man.

[look 171]

I always return phone calls at the end of the day. If not sooner. I would be piss if someone don't return my calls.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by look 171

Br very careful with that If I were you. They will break in, take your phone, talk to their girl friends while driving into Canada then they get in an accident and you are liable for all that crap. Dont leave your phone in the car man.

I'm not sure I want to ask but, how do you know this?

[Tervuren]

I can go a few days without checking/looking at it.

I prefer in person communication.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by look 171

I always return phone calls at the end of the day. If not sooner. I would be piss if someone don't return my calls.

I guess the question is...for you, what time do you consider "end of day"?

In other words.....if someone leaves a message for you after 8pm...do you call them back before retiring for the evening?

Generally speaking......what's your cutoff time?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by fastfredracing

Dude was salty at me this am . He texted me at 5:45 last night. I did not get home from work till 7:15, and noticed his message right when I was getting out of my truck. It was nothing urgent,. and I answered him at 9:00 am this morning .
His response, was " well, you never texted me back so.... "
I guess in this modern world, we are supposed to be johnny on the spot with communications.

I assume it was business? I assume your business hours aren't all night? The guy can stuff it. I'd say, that if you got an inquiry at 17:45 and you responded the next day at 09:00, that you did well. It's easy these days to get testy when a response isn't instant. My wife often has that sort of reaction, and I remind her that depending upon the company and the query it could be a few hours to a week and still be reasonable.

It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on things, especially if you have 2 or 3 times a day that you often do your correspondence. Anyone that doesn't like it has unrealistic expectations that you won't be able to fix and shouldn't worry too much about.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by A930Rocket

I had a phone for work.

I left it in the truck each night to charge and use the next day.

My off hours were for my family and me.

That ^

These days it's much, much too easy to get caught up in the connected thing, watching and responding 16 hours a day. You have a business and your correspondence should be done during business hours. If you occasionally check things or respond outside of that when you've got spare time, fine, but I'd try to keep it to a minimum unless you have the kind of work where you need to be available 24x7 (which, i would assume you are compensated for that sort of availability).

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Assuming you keep your business phone separate from your personal just set up automated replies.

We have received your message. We read and respond 3 times during the day 9 AM, 12 PM and 5 PM.

That's a great idea!! Not only do folks essentially get an immediate response, but it also sets an expectation so they are less likely to be testy. You probably even have a way on your phone to manually set these. I know that most smart phones and text apps these days have a way that you can manually launch that sort of canned response. If it's email, then you can probably pretty easily set it up as well.

[URY914]

I work at an hospital. I always have it with me.

[BeeMaster]

Flip phone here. If you want to contact me call and we talk now or I call back in a couple minutes when I don't have my head in a bee hive.����������

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Flip phone!

Call me old school, but I don't understand text. My wife would disagree... but I feel the history of communication went like this-

In the beginning, people grunted.
Then- people talked. It worked better.
Then - there were letters. They could communicate a tangible (binding? perhaps) message across distance and time. Since this was such a gift- people respected it, and used proper English and emphasized penmanship and writing skills.
After that- the telephone came along. People understood how much better speaking directly was. You could speak in real time, and communicate nuances through phrasing and intonation that was superior to a hand written letter. Although the art of penmanship was lost, speaking directly was better. If I was pi$$ed- you'd know (and vice-versa)
THEN- the answering machine. You could speak your mind directly into an answering machine, and someone could listen to it at a later time.
AND THEN- Email- typing and sending messages instantaneously with no postage.

This is where I get a little opinionated.

FINALLY- Text.
People, bored with perfectly acceptable phones, and email, decided punching cryptic little codes into their flip phones was better. It wasn't. It was a giant leap side/backwardways in the sake of novelty. It accomplished nothing (my wife disagrees). Frustrated with what should have taken 2 seconds to say, millenials began writing BTDT, etc... in the sake of laziness/frustration. To advance this backwards field of communication, smart phones and gadgets were introduced, at about the same time as pointless annoying ringtones were introduced.

Now- people are spending longer than just leaving a darn voice mail. Not only that, text loses the nuances of voice inflection which carry meaning. With email or text, you need GREEN FONTS, EMOTICONS, EMOJI's - just to say the same thing you could have done quicker and more effectively by either choosing to leave a 15 second voicemail- OR writing a more formal and tangible email.

MY wife disagrees- she says text are somehow better to communicate "when you don't actually want to speak to the person"- I call BS. If things are that bad, in my mind- you either need to speak to them to clear the air- OR- communicate via email/ written formal letter for legal reasons.

Text, as I see it, is a pointless backwards method of novelty communication, which solves nothing, and is a step backwards in the great scheme of the universe. Don't get me wrong- I am impressed with auto voice recognition which instantaneously dictates voice into text, however, that should still go into the bin of "email". It is also a still not so perfect system- but will get better with time hopefully.

Flame on! (emoticon needed because you couldn't hear me phrasing this in a lighthearted tone to begin with)

ps- I am laughing because someone contacted me via text on my flip phone asking if this was still my number. Since I disdain text, I called back and got his voicemail, in which he flat out stated he hated voicemail and to text him.(lol... which you would have heard if we were speaking directly, or I had told you this on a voicemail/answering machine)

As for response times-I fall under business hours for response time. So long as someone states their response times, I respect that. We expect immediate, I also respect boundaries. We all need to be able to compartmentalize as needed.

[JackDidley]

No $$$$$ reason for me to cling to my phone. Its just so my friends can get me. I carry it but spend maybe 10 minutes using it on an average day. I do use a land line. AS someone posted earlier, I prefer face to face dialog.

[ppetion]

I always have my phone near me . My phone is set automatically not to ring (phone calls or messages ) between 8pm and 7am. Unless you are in my favorites. People in my favorites are immediate family members.
Calls will go straight to vmail, but will show as a miss call.
Text will come up but will not ring my phone .

It's up to me to look and see if there were any miss calls or messages