To really master your time, you need a lot more than time management techniques. Sometimes you need a whole new way of doing things.
As the friendly plumber was leaving the other day, he mentioned that he had a few more callbacks to go on before he”d head home. A “callback” means he did a job and was called back to fix something. And he won’t be paid.
Sometimes they’re inevitable, he said. But other times people call six months later and claim that “it” hadn’t worked all along.
“Sometimes.”
“Really, how?”
“Prevention. Here’s what you do:
“Before you leave the job, spell out very clearly what you did. Let people know that if they see any leaks or malfunction they should call you right away.
“Explain that there’s a chance that A or B may be an issue and require an adjustment. To qualify as an adjustment, they need to call within X amount of time. After that you’re happy to come out again, but you’ll have to charge for another service call.”
So many time wasters can be prevented with a bit of extra effort up front. Here’s how in 3 easy steps:
In the plumber’s situation, there were several common scenarios where he would be called back for a problem that he could tell were not related to his earlier work.
The plumber realized he wasn’t clearly spelling out what is or is not covered by a callback. And because he is a nice guy, my guess is he wasn’t being assertive enough. The cause of his problem was unclear expectations.
The plumber now has a few sentences he can use to wrap things up in way that leaves his customers feeling good, but also knowing what to expect. And so when he gets a call, it’ll be alot easier to remind customers that this callback may turn out to be a paid service call.
This little bit of prevention will save him a few hours a week. When you save just one hour each week for a year, that gives you an extra work week that year!
