We asked dentists, hygienists, assistants, and front-office personnel one question ...
| 1. A long-time sales rep meets with you and your team members to discuss a new product. The sales rep gives no indication that he is expecting an important phone call. The conversation is shor; the sales rep asks a good time to call back, then he returns to the presentation. Which one of the follow statements do you agree with most? |
We received 279 answers to the question...
Some of the "other" responses included ...
- He could have stated ahead of time that he was waiting for an important call, then kept it short.
- Unless specified at the begining of the meeting of a possible emergency call, the cell phone should be off.
- The rep should ask if it's OK to answer important calls only from boss.
- He could have explained that he needed to leave it on due to family responsibilities.
- The rep could say he was expecting a very important phone call and ask if it is OK if he answers it. This scenario should be extremely rare.
- It would have been nice for him/her to pre-inform the doctor/team that he was expecting a very important call. Asked if they minded he take it, reminding them he would keep it short as possible.
- If he was expecting an important call, he should have said so and apologized in advance for possibly needing to take a call and kept it brief (which he did). Normally I would expect no phone calls to be the rule when having a meeting with the entire team. On a routine visit, no problem what he did was fine. When he's reserved time with me and my staff I expect that time commitment to go both ways. Especially since I'm the customer and he's trying to sell me something.
- We're pretty casual so I don't think the short call would have been a big deal.
