Client Called Three Times on Sunday

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Without knowing your specific situation, it is really hard to advise.
I have a work cell and a personal cell. If someone called my work cell 3 times in a period of 2 hours, even if I did not know the #, I would call back as a courtesy.
I would also put in "important clients" #s into my contacts so that they would pop up.

This is the way. Let me guess: you are good at your job and have a successful career

You must be really old and not tech savvy. Robo-dialers literally crawl the web looking for any 'live' line. Once they have a connection (a pick up or a call back) the number gets sold to every spammer in the universe. And you will get calls every hour every day every month.

Congratulations! You are now paying $90 a month for a phone that for all intents and purposes, serves as an annoyance 24 hours a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why didn’t you call back after mass? Three time someone is calling I would check.

You sound irresponsible. I had same thing happen got a call from strange number at 1130 pm hung up dialed again I called back was my daughter and phone pick pocketed in bar and using stranger phone to call me to alert ATT as my plan.

Seems weird to not pick up emergency calls in general

It sounds like OP is in an industry where things are not an "emergency" especially when they happen at 9:30a on a Sunday. It is likely perfectly reasonable for OP to not pick up work calls on the weekend if they have not had prior discussions about it.

Except it was escalated to their boss. So it was important enough.

Tell me you don't manage people without telling me you don't manage people.

Escalation ≠ important. Escalation to some people means "give me attention now!"

[Anonymous]

I dealt with this ALL the time in my last job. I was making $90k, no way in heck was I going to take calls on weekends. This is what I ended up having to implement-

-I added my office hours to my email signature
-Added my office hours to my work phone voicemail along with "for weekend inquiries, you can expect a response Monday morning. Thank you!"
-Then people also found my personal number somehow, so I added to my personal voicemail "If you are trying to reach me at X company, my work number is xxx-xxxx"
-Finally, I did end up having to put an OOO on every weekend saying we are closed on weekends and I will respond to this message on Monday.

I am starting a new job next month and CANNOT WAIT TO BE FREE!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Without knowing your specific situation, it is really hard to advise.
I have a work cell and a personal cell. If someone called my work cell 3 times in a period of 2 hours, even if I did not know the #, I would call back as a courtesy.
I would also put in "important clients" #s into my contacts so that they would pop up.

Most people don’t have seperate work phones.

+1. Maybe there are some industries where this is the norm, but I don't know anybody who has a separate work and personal cell phone.

It’s very common in gov, as you aren’t supposed to work on personal equipment regularly.

I would expect lawyers would have a separate line; even under own expense to ensure your personal phone / messages aren’t vacuumed up for a lawsuit discovery.

[Anonymous]

Did your boss give them your number? Dick!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why didn't you call after mass? Just check in. You sound unprofessional on this one sorry

Back to reading comprehension class for you. There was no VM or text or any indication it was a work call. Only a fool returns calls from unknown numbers. It's basically asking to be added to a spam list.

Back to blue collar work for you. If you know it's not your family, check in with work. I would phone my asdistant and ask.

Different poster here. What planet are you from? If I checked in with work every time I got an unknown call I’d be checking in several times a day and wasting their time. You’re nuts. When you can a call from an unknown number that isn’t followed up by either a text or voicemail you ignore it. That’s the rule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why didn’t you call back after mass? Three time someone is calling I would check.

You sound irresponsible. I had same thing happen got a call from strange number at 1130 pm hung up dialed again I called back was my daughter and phone pick pocketed in bar and using stranger phone to call me to alert ATT as my plan.

Seems weird to not pick up emergency calls in general

It sounds like OP is in an industry where things are not an "emergency" especially when they happen at 9:30a on a Sunday. It is likely perfectly reasonable for OP to not pick up work calls on the weekend if they have not had prior discussions about it.

Except it was escalated to their boss. So it was important enough.

Tell me you don't manage people without telling me you don't manage people.

Escalation ≠ important. Escalation to some people means "give me attention now!"

DP. Maybe, but it very well could be important to OP's career if client/s are unhappy for whatever reason.

This who thing seems like the difference between a Fed who is at a level that is not expected to work beyond work hours vs private industry with billable hours or project fees/pricing.

[Anonymous]

It's the client's problem that they didn't leave a message or send a follow-up email. There is no expectation that anyone answer a random call on a Sunday morning on their personal cell phone.

But, OP's response to her boss that she just doesn't work weekends is odd. If she's making 90k, like a PP mentioned, that's reasonable. If she's at a higher level, that's not reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the client's problem that they didn't leave a message or send a follow-up email. There is no expectation that anyone answer a random call on a Sunday morning on their personal cell phone.

But, OP's response to her boss that she just doesn't work weekends is odd. If she's making 90k, like a PP mentioned, that's reasonable. If she's at a higher level, that's not reasonable.

Yep. This was the mistake. She has an out since they called while she was at mass with an unknown #. Roll the dice in not calling back, but then when the boss contacted, it should have been:
-I was in church and phone was off.
-I saw unknown caller with no message.
-If this is going to happen in the future we need a plan for how to deal with.

And if comp is only 90K then she is signaling with saying: I don't work weekends due to comp, that she isn't interested in being promoted. Fine, but be okay with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got a call from a client once at 8pm Xmas eve from a client on a very quick emergency question. I answered.

They were in Tokyo and was 10 am
Xmas day their Tome and Xmas day is a work day. I was just a file location they could not access. Took five minutes. I got big kudus at work on a trivial matter.

I agree with you that a quick call even at an inconvenient time can mean a lot in building relationships and your reputation at work, but, if you had been at church or some other thing on Christmas Eve with your phone off, would it have really been a big deal to answer them the next day? I also think if you work with int'l clients (especially in Asia) you are used to needing flexibility around time zones and holidays. OP may not be in this situation.

yeah. I think it’s even more important to have contingency plans when you work with international clients. Otherwise they are going to start calling you at 3am and scheduling meetings for 5am while you are asleep. it’s completely random that they reached you on xmas eve. what happens next time when they are trying to reach you at midnight, or expecting you to do 3 hours of work at 9am on Christmas morning?

[Anonymous]

My assumption here is that your manager is less concerned about why you didn't answer the call and more about why the client felt the need to call in the first place.

The fact that your manager knew when you walked in means the client moved on from you and reached out to somebody else with the issue. What was the issue? Was there something you could have done (during the work week) to prevent it?

Of course you were fine not to answer a call during mass or return a call from an unknown number. Your manager will get that. Move on from that. Focus on how to prevent the client's need to reach out on the weekend, and how you can establish a process for getting them a response if there is an emergency.

[Anonymous]

If you knew it was a very special client and they called three times it was obviously important. Why didn’t you just call back? Your boss had every right to be up your ass.

[Anonymous]

You should have called back later, and say to regroup on Monday. Amateur hour over here…

[Anonymous]

When I was at Brown Brothers Harriman years ago we actually provided client service.

For instance one client on his wedding day Best Man got food poisoning. His financial advisor got a call and filled in on 60 minutes notice in his tux. His wife ran got gift and got dressed attend and he did toast.

We did stuff like that as they are clients and that’s how you make Partner.

You need to go the extra mile. My brother in law was in sales and often took orders one to football games on Sunday, dinner with wife in Saturday. Clients don’t work your schedule you work there schedule

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was at Brown Brothers Harriman years ago we actually provided client service.

For instance one client on his wedding day Best Man got food poisoning. His financial advisor got a call and filled in on 60 minutes notice in his tux. His wife ran got gift and got dressed attend and he did toast.

We did stuff like that as they are clients and that’s how you make Partner.

You need to go the extra mile. My brother in law was in sales and often took orders one to football games on Sunday, dinner with wife in Saturday. Clients don’t work your schedule you work there schedule

That is incredible client service.

I agree that OP should have called back. OP got three calls in a short span of time on a weekend where weekend calls apparently never happen. That signals a problem - probably with OP’s work product. OP would have saved themselves a lot of trouble by just returning the call.