do you answer the phone on weekends?

[axeman462]

If my phone rings, I answer it. That simple.

But I'll never forget the time my cell phone rang during a funeral.
My ring tone back then was the theme song for the Walking Dead.

That one got a little froggy.

A while back I was with my wife and kids at a museum. We were taking a guided tour with other people.
There was a lady there with a Joe Biden T-shirt on.
At this point my text message ring tone was the sound of a shot gun blast. And I always have my volume all the way up. because, why not?

Well, I guess I didn't have a signal for most of the tour. Then at one point it got very quiet because the tour guide stopped talking for a moment or two, and 5 or 6 text messages came through.

My wife got a little embarrassed (as she usually is by me), but the horrified look on the liberal's face was totally worth it. My kids literally fell over laughing

 

[somarco]

Message includes my email address

Great idea.

 

[Yagents]

Great idea.

I keep the same message all year round and works well. "It's my busy season, the best way to reach me is email @...."

They don't know when my busy season starts or ends

 

[sbg_ben]

All calls go to my voice mail. Message includes my email address stating that's the best way to reach me during OEP. Works like a charm. Handle questions via email while on calls or on my own schedule

I'm thinking of updating my voicemail with this today. This is a wonderful idea.

I appreciate everyone's input on this.

 

[Yagents]

I recommend being clear in the spelling of an easy email address and say it twice. Many will call back twice to get the email again as they aren't ready to write down

 

[sshafran]

I recommend a World Without Email by Cal Newport, and I purposefully try to reduce emails for my agency, both inbound and outbound.

At the risk of insurance forum pile on telling me I'm wrong - read the book before buying into email as a preferred method for client communication - inbound or outbound.

Over the past few years (since 2021) I've worked on reducing emails -- I can't recommend it enough.

My $.02

 

[sshafran]

My $.02

Backed by a ton of research...

 

[InsuranceGuy29]

Me personally, I don't care because I have no kids and my life revolves around work. I also don't mind working into the evening and doing a few things.

With that said, everyone is different, and some clients can be very entitled and not realize that agents are just people/businesses that have lives and would like to enjoy them, too.

It's not unreasonable at all to expect clients to only reach out to you during business hours, Monday-Friday. There really should be no "emergency" in this business. It's not that kind of business.

If there is an "emergency" then it's because the person waited until the very last second and expected that you were just gonna drop everything and meet with them on the very last day they qualify to get a policy.

People forget that just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. Meaning, yes, everyone has a phone on them at all times, but people also deserve some time for themselves.

So if you're thinking about reaching out at 11:30pm on a Friday, or anytime during Saturday or Sunday, you should probably just wait until Monday.

 

[Panda1]

Don't get many calls now but when I was active I answered whenever. Course for the majority of that time we didn't have cell phones so if I was away from home doing something with the family I didn't get calls. I remember one young lady calling me at 6 AM to tell me her husband had died that night. I had just taken his app earlier that week for 25K. Hadn't even gotten the policy back. It paid along with a plan I was replacing that had not yet been cancelled.

Similar situation with Medsup. Took app on Tuesday he died on Thursday. Took care of business which resulted in Medsup for her and medical for her daughter and family a bit later

 

[Panda1]

Oh BTW the reason it paid is because the company would have issued the policy based on the fact that they would have issued the policy based on the app.