SmallBusinessNewz

Now that the weather is starting to warm up, I am anticipating having some spiders in my house. If it is anything like last year, they'll be coming inside in droves. I'm not sure why the inside of my house is so attractive to them, but they seem to love it.

This poses quite a problem for me, since not only do I despise them (sorry if I offend an spider lovers), but my wife is pregnant and the idea of spiders crawling on her while she sleeps or on my baby when she gets here sickens me.

So as I began to anticipate this problem, I started looking up exterminators in the area. I got quite a few listings for local ones with a simple Google search. I checked out a few web sites, and sent an email to one of them who seemed to be a potential candidate for the best choice.

I inquired about getting a price quote and about the lasting effects of any chemicals that would be sprayed in the house. After all, my wife is pregnant, and I don't want her to be exposed to anything harmful.

Now it has only been a day, and yesterday was Sunday, so I'm not that surprised that I haven't gotten a response yet, but how long will it take? I'm not knocking this particular exterminator just yet, but it occurred to me that the timeliness of their response could in fact have an impact on whether or not I explore other options.

From my standpoint, if it is that urgent to me, I could call them today rather than wait for their response. But from the standpoint of their business, they don't know that I'm going to follow up with them. I could just as easily move on to a competitor. They can't rely on the possibility that I'll wait for them to get back to me or take the initiative and pick up the phone. It is their duty as a business to follow up with me as quickly as possible or risk losing me as a customer.

Again, it hasn't been that long yet, and it was on a Sunday, and I like to think that I'm a pretty reasonable guy. I'm not ready to cancel them out just yet, but they don't know how reasonable I am. Many people aren't so patient, and would just as soon have already moved on.

So think about this when receiving messages from potential customers. Your timeliness could be the difference between getting a sale and letting one slip through your fingers.