Robin Hall
I just have a ”Quick Question”…
Consultants…it is our nature to want to just answer questions. Once we give the information to the client, it is hard to say, “Oh, by the way, we never discussed price;my fee is…”
The words that can lose us the most money are “I just have a Quick Question.”. Clients believe that they should not have to pay for your expertise when they just have a “quick question”. We could do quick questions all day long and then realize that we have not been able to bill anyone all day, because we have been quick-questioned to death.
Sometimes, the way we phrase things to a client will make all the difference in the world. We want to help our clients, but we also need to be paid for our service. By simply changing our response to our client, they can gain respect for our time in knowing that it is a billable occurrence.“Yes, I would love to help you with your question, but I am right in the middle of something. I will be happy to enter a support ticket into the system and call you back at 2 PM; does that appointment time work for you?” This simple statement has accomplished two separate but important facts. It has reinforced to the client that you have other clients, and you are not just sitting around waiting for their call; and secondly, that it is now a set appointment and it will be billed to their account.
Now with all of that being said, we need a place to enter in support tickets for ourselves or for our staff members. Outlook and sticky notes just will not cut it anymore. Having a proper CRM that allows you to track your support tickets that could take one or several phone calls to resolve, will help you organize what is on your plate.
Robin Hall is the President and Principal Consultant of VARC Solutions in Friendswood, TX specializing in QuickBooks training and consulting, and also QuickBase development. Robin has been a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor since 1999 (Advanced Certified since 2007) and an Intuit Premier Reseller since 2006. She is also member of the Intuit Advisory Council and a QuickBase Certified, QuickBase Solution Provider. Robin has been an expert presenter at Scaling New Heights, and at the Intuit Premier Reseller Conference to almost 600 of Intuit’s top Solution Providers.
Robin has earned several awards including Intuit’s 2010 Payroll Partner of the Year, Intuit’s 2009 Partner of the Year, Intuit’s Customer Satisfaction Award 2008, Bob Scott’s Insights 2009 VAR Stars (for valued-added resellers in the mid-market financial software space), Intuit’s Customer Delight Performance Award, and Friendswood Chamber of Commerce Business Woman of the Year.
To check out NEXT, visit www.varcsolutions.com/NEXT or call 281-412-6914 for more information.