

Why startups should use the phone - anemitz
http://pandodaily.com/2013/07/30/dial-up-why-startups-should-use-the-phone/

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josh2600
I think of the phone as one of the most valuable tools you can use during the
unscalable part at the beginning of the startup.

To this day, a face to face meeting trumps all other forms of communication in
sincerity and authenticity. If I'm willing to fly halfway around the world to
meet you, it says a lot. Similarly, but to a lesser extent, a phone call means
more than an email which means more than an SMS.

So yeah I think startups should use the phone, but I'm admittedly a bit biased
since I'm so deep in the telecom industry.

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anemitz
Not sure why there's such backlash against the idea of calling customers. You
signed up for a service. If you're at all serious, there's a good chance
getting a call right away will either 1) help overcome some stumbling blocks
with activation or, 2) leave you with a feeling of personal connection. Both
are good things in my book.

But yes, of course, no one wants to get a used car salesman calling them and
stuffing a sale down their throat. That's not what this post is advocating.
But in case you're worried (or not serious about using the service) there's an
easy way to avoid getting a call: don't enter a phone number (or at least a
real one).

~~~
jackmaney
Not all of us get warm fuzzy feelings of personal connections from unsolicited
marketing calls.

~~~
true_religion
Sure, it'd be bad if it were a marketting call. No one wants to be called for
an upsale.

But what if the call is just part of the onboarding process to answer your
questions better than any FAQ could?

~~~
jackmaney
I'd still be irked that some "customer-centered" jackass thinks so little of
my time that he'd call me in an attempt to play a game of 20 questions about
what questions I might have.

Look, if I want to know about your product, I'll let you know. Read the last
four words of the previous sentence again: _I_ will let _you_ know.

~~~
true_religion
Ah, its my mistake for phrasing it as if the question was posed to you in
particular. I meant it in a rhetorical sense... speaking about a general
population.

On HN, we're entrepreneurs and ought not to care about outliers when it comes
to making business decisions. If most people will benefit from a phone call,
and those who don't benefit won't be too adversely impacted then I say....
make the call.

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retarp
I received one of these type phone calls from a company who had recently
purchased an antivirus company we are in contract with so they were sort of in
startup phase.

We were having major issues so I was happy they had called out of the blue
promising to fix after I explained (we had no support contact info after the
acquisition, old numbers were just cut off with zero notice to existing
customers). After a month of emails, conference calls, and remote sessions we
wound up back at square one with a product that does not work.

The kicker: he tried to upsell us to their new SaaS antivirus after being
unable to fix our problems! Then they stopped returning our calls/emails
leaving us with a broken product we spent a lot of money on.

Bottom line is I'm no better off for them having followed the advice given
here. I think they didn't care and that initial phone call was only a sales
call.

Please never call me ever again, you are scum the same as pop up surveys on
corporate websites. If I have a problem I will call you.

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sharkweek
I was a bank teller in college -- we would call new account signups after one
month of having signed up to double check that they got their debit card,
checks, etc., just to make sure things were going ok.

People were blown away that we were doing this, and the ones that had
something go wrong were really grateful we were proactive in helping them
before they had even asked for it.

It was a quick 2-3 minute conversation, but really was extremely valuable in
client retention.

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tshtf
Don't bother calling me unless I've explicitly opted in. Otherwise I'll be the
first to cancel your service.

~~~
SteliE
That's fair.

What we found especially in B2B is that when people decide to put in their
phone number they are actually glad to have someone call and offer help.

I call users every day and never had someone be mad at me or cancel. Quite the
opposite, many upgrade as a result of our interaction :)

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Aldo_MX
I hate to be called, I prefer to receive an email and check it _when I have
time_ , yet many companies seem reluctant to use email and prefer to disturb
me over the phone. Sadly for me I have ended up developing a (really)
defensive stance, because most of the calls I receive are "spam".

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind receiving a call when something _that really
requires my attention_ happens.

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wojcikstefan
Calling is definitely harder to scale than a simple email campaign, but the
effects of calling are much better. I experienced it both as the prey and the
hunter :) I think every startup should at least try it and then decide whether
it's worth the effort to scale it.

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unsignedint
I've had bad experience with company calling, namely, it was TechNet people.
(I guess, that was more of customer retention, though.) But still, they
demonstrated one of worst example of how to call their customer. For example,
they would call me every other day until I respond, and they never left a
single voice mail.

If you're going to call me... 1) If I don't take a call, leave a voice mail,
telling me who you are, and leave a number I can actually call back, and 2)
Don't check back on me after I already said no.

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theflyingkiwi42
We call every sign-up, but only about 5% answers the call. While we leave a
nice voicemail message, and offer a free setup session, very few users take us
up on it. Almost none of the people that we leave a voicemail with call us
back.

Are there are metrics available for companies that do this? So far I have not
seen any increase in LTV from the people that we do reach.

~~~
anemitz
How soon after signup do you call? 5% is definitely on the lower end of what I
would expect if you're generally calling within an hour of signup. You can
really blow someone's mind by calling them within a few minutes of signup.
You're not looking to get them on the phone for more than a couple minutes --
just a quick, "hey how's it going..anything I can quickly help with...ok,
great...if you have any questions go here or contact us like this..."

EDIT: signups outside of normal business hours are harder to call so it's OK
to try and fit those in as best you can -- your success there will also depend
on the signup's timezone.

~~~
theflyingkiwi42
We call the next day. I'll see what happens if we call within an hour. Good
suggestion - thanks!

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andrewcross
You don't even have to wait for the signup either - you can often get them on
the phone after a well-written cold email. I run a marketplace for trips
planned by locals (Tripzaar.com), and when we are recruiting locals, we try
and get them on a call before they even sign up. Then once we get on a call,
we'll actually listen to their problems, offer to help, then manually create
their account for them. Not only does this get more people onto the site, but
we get a considerably more loyal community as well. I've heard this "sign them
up yourself" strategy work very well for quite a few other companies too.

It definitely won't scale, but we'd rather have a few people who really buy in
than thousands who wouldn't feel comfortable dropping us a line with
suggestions.

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arjie
Depends on what the service is. I like it if Windows Azure calls me to see if
they can help me with work. If I'm just trying out your social networking app
and you call me, I will log out and delete your stuff because I don't want
that sort of relationship with you.

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jackmaney
If anyone plans on using this strategy for their start-up, I hope that they're
explicit about it on their webpage. That way, I'll know which SaaS start-ups
to avoid like the plague.

Not everyone is an extrovert.

