On phone calls

The other day someone wrote in about a billing issue. The bill they received said they owed what they believed they had already paid. They wrote in with a very long email with many sections fully capitalized in frustration.

I drafted an email on how the bill worked and why it made sense but decided not to send it. Instead I reached out to setup a phone call with them since it was clear their frustration with the situation.

We spoke about their concern and clarified how the bill could be read and resolved the matter. We also spoke at length about how bills have generally been really difficult to decipher and why that is. We also spoke on what else they loved about their services and what they didn’t. We spoke about how they could reach out again for any issue they faced if they needed to and how we would reach out when we had all their concerns resolved.

Simply giving someone a call and talking as two people rather than over an email or slack or message is remarkably powerful in many ways.

A phone call helps answer questions synchronously and work through things together rather than with gaps where you don’t know if / when you’ll ever hear back - a time when it’s easy to jump to conclusions and cause more misunderstanding.

A phone call keeps you grounded in understand how what is important to your members. Whenever you doubt a decision or find a challenge in the business or reach an internal impasse - you should simply reach out and speak with your members on the phone - they’ll crystallize for you exactly what you should do next.

A phone call is an opportunity to learn about what else is going well and what isn’t to recalibrate other areas for improvement.

A phone call allows your customers to feel heard so that they may continue to support you for the long future. When the trail of feedback stops it is an unfortunate place to be in - no one cares enough to even leave feedback.

A phone call is a small gesture to do but it is one of the most valuable problem solving tools we have.