CALL BACK OR FOLLOW UP WITHIN 24 HOURS!

Recently, my wife and I have been working diligently to hire a mason contractor. We needed a mason to repoint our chimney within two weeks. I placed atleast 8 to 10 calls to nearly all of the mason contractors in central Pennsylvania. Through all of the contractor visits and bids, we narrowed the decision to two competitive contractors. We called the first contractor and left a message saying "We are going to go with you, please put your estimate in writing and drop it off. We will then discuss the project start date. Call me at ###-####... He earned our business--then lost our business. He didn't return our call.

We waited for our first mason to call us back. After nearly a week of waiting, we called contractor number two and left a similar message. Guess what? He called back within 24 hours and earned our business.

Just when we thought our decision was final, the first contractor finally called back (Nearly Two Weeks Later!) He apologized and said "I received your message, I can come by tomorrow to do the job!" I had to apologize back to him and explain that we needed the project done quickly and we hired someone else to complete the project. I learned a valuable lesson through this communication...Follow up within 24 hours! If you don't follow up, you may lose clients and future business.