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When you leave a voice mail message, do you really expect someone to call you back immediately? Usually, what we are calling about isn’t urgent and a few hours won’t make or break the deal. When I moved to California, I feared it would be impossible to run my Internet travel agency with East Coast customers. It wasn’t. My voice mail explained I was in California and asked customers to leave both day and evening numbers to reach them. People in the East think Californians are flakes anyway, so they accepted the unusual hours. In fact, it was a plus, because, since I specialized in exotic spa vacations, many people didn’t want to discuss mud wraps and de-stressing getaways at their jobs anyway. Fellow West Coasters understood the odd hours. What If I Have to Work During Regular Business Hours? Never answer the phone when you are sleepy. Trust me. I found this out the hard way. If you can afford it, hire someone or an answering service to cover the phones for the first few hours. Even if you have to get back to customers
later, they will be far happier if they talked to a person instead of a machine. If you have to use a message machine, record a message something like this: “You’ve reached Mike Nelson at Spa World Reservation Service. Our regular business hours are Noon to 8 p.m., PST. Please leave both a day and evening phone, so we can help you.”