Ring...Your Customers Are Calling

I don't know how I survived before caller ID. Call me a screen-aholic, but if I can't see who's calling, I don't pick up. That's why you'll rarely catch me answering my phone before three or four solid rings. Marketing guru Seth Godin thinks that's bad for business, especially if you're in the service industry. In this blog entry he challenges businesses to answer their phones after just one ring. "When you need to answer the phone in one ring, you discover exactly what it means to provide a certain level of service. Either you're succeeding or failing," Godin writes. I love the idea, probably because I hate being put on hold. Take a look at the average experience of a customer calling your business. You might decide the one-ring system would improve your service.