Do You Want 91,200 People Complaining They Can’t Get Your Number?
Pepsi has one. Fed-Ex has one. God, even Microsoft has one. Amazon doesn’t have one, and you get 91,200 hits when you Google “What is Amazon.com’s phone number?” Most of them seem to be from angry customers complaining they can’t get ahold of the company. Some of them seem to be user-created secret websites listing how to get a real live person on the line. Interestingly, none of them seem to be from Amazon saying what their phone number is.
Now why don’t you have a phone number listed on your website?
Maybe you don’t like the phone. Maybe you hate being interrupted. Maybe you have a weird voice. Maybe you want to be able to interact with your customers when you’re ready. There’s only one problem with that.
Nobody cares what you want.
Okay, maybe some people care. Your wife might care. Maybe your mom cares. But your home business customers? They don’t give a damn what you want. Your customers care about what your customers want, and so should you.
I chose my web designer because he had his phone number on his website. I did a case study on an entrepreneur, and then bought three of his books, because I could call him. I landed a pretty cool promotional opportunity because I was able to phone the webmaster and she answered on the first ring.
Phone numbers = Transparency. Transparency = Trust.
I have a little story for you. I used to play Yahoo Music for Jack. They had a station for toddlers called Lil’ Kids Tunes. We used to dance to it. It was fun. One day, I went to click on the station, and what I heard was rap. Along the lines of “My lipgloss is so hot it makes all the playas want to *&%# me.” I clicked out of it and clicked back in to make sure I had the right station. Yup. Only this time it was a song about suicide. There was no change in the information, the station had the same details as it always had. Except now it’s about sex and death.
I went to Yahoo’s website to find a contact number and I won’t even get into how difficult that was. After about an hour, I finally got ahold of someone who told me that complaints were only handled by e-mail. Um, what? She transferred me to a supervisor who told me the same thing. I asked him what he would tell someone if they were screaming and yelling and threatening to go to the press. He said he’d tell them to e-mail the complaints department.
Finally, he gave me their corporate head office number, which I called at my own expense. I went through the whole rigmarole again and was once again told that no-one in the entire of Yahoo would speak to me about this. Nothing says “I love my customers” like categorically refusing to speak to them.
Are you writing a diary or running a business?
Bloggers seem to think that there’s no reason to contact them by phone. While this may be true in some cases (really, you shouldn’t be calling Dooce on her home line), if you’re willing to accept people’s money, you should be willing to accept their phone calls.
But then the Bad Guys can find me!
People seem to be under the impression that putting your phone number on your website makes you an easy target for Bad Guys. I would venture to say that it makes you an easy target for Lazy Bad Guys who happen to be on your site anyway. Is your last name on your website? Have you ever mentioned, even once, what city you’re from or where you went to college? Do you visit other websites that can track your IP address? Yes? Then if they want to find you, they can, so you may as well put the number up and please the 99.9983% of the population who aren’t cyber-stalkers.
But you’ll check your e-mail sooner!
Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. How the hell do I know that? What I do know is that sometimes I look at my e-mail and say, “I’ll get to it later.” You probably do too. But how many of us ignore our office phone?
Bottom line: Put your phone number on there. Get a P.O. Box. Start acting like a business. Until you do, quit whining about how you don’t make enough money to quit your day job.
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