Calling clients back

[sugarandspicexx]

I was thinking recently about how ridiculous it is that when lining up a job, the sitters hang up, arrange who's going to take it then call the family back..

Wouldn't it have made so much more financial sense and convenience for both parties if they simply had the parent hold for a few moments and arrange the job in one call?

[zoar3]

^It would have especially since in those days each call cost money to make. I do have vague memory of all calls costing some amount of money when I was very young. Then, changed to like now only out of area toll calls and of course long distance costs. Local calls to same area code and usually some immediate surrounding areas are free. I never quite got why throughout the book, unless to make us think, it was STILL 1986, the girls always had to pay for every call.

Just now thinking, that after collecting dues and/or "announcements," BEFORE the phone began ringing and/or the girls starting eating/gossping, they all should have had a look at that week's calendar to make certain it was updated and that their Sitting times were still accurate. Perhaps after a Friday meeting, they could have stayed a few extra minutes to do this. In any case, that way when the phone rang, unless someone sudenly remembered an obligation, there truly would be no need to call the client back!

I am editing this to say, I can * sort of* understand why they would prefer to "call back." Can't you just see one of them loudly complaining about not wanting to sit for Jenny while Mrs. P was on the phone waiting? That reasoning, if true, just reminds me they really are young 13, some of the time anyway!

[booboobrewer]

That really, really bugged me. It makes so much more sense to stay on the line instead of hanging up, checking the record book for two seconds (because Mary Anne didn't take long at all), and dialing the client again, when the client was probably waiting there by the phone.

[oldhickory]

i never really thought about this until the last time i read california girls, where kristy is stunned that the WLKC covered the phone instead of hanging up. but then i was thinking it might have had something to do with her fear of tying up the line -- maybe she thought it would be better for business to have the phone free for those thirty seconds or so that it takes to assign a job, instead of waiting on the line while someone is trying to call in. but who knows.

[sparklymouse]

I thought it made sense to call the clients back, although maybe they could have extended their meetings to 6:05 and spent the last five minutes calling everyone back at once. As zoar3 said, nobody wants to overhear potential sitters complaining about their kids. The times when nobody was available would be embarrassing because they would have to announce that they would have to search for someone to take the job. And there were plenty of times where multiple girls were available and they had to decide who would get the job.

[celaeno]

Eh, I never thought it was weird. They didn't want to tie up the phone (since they sometimes say they get several calls before the phone is free and they can call the parents back). And as sparklymouse said, often multiple girls were free, and they might take a minute or two deciding whom to give the job to. Plus they know they occasionally have to call Logan or Shannon for a job, so I think it's just easier to call the client back.

[zoar3]

I think what was weird besides the so-called cost of the calls was that they almost always called the client back, yet MA had the record book in her lap and whoever answered the phone sometimes anyway, repeated the info back to the parent. So MA could have whispered who was available. Lol, the things we enjoy analyzing!

[booboobrewer]

Right, MA always had the record book ready. It just seemed like a waste of time to me.

[anzuhana]

i never really thought about this until the last time i read california girls, where kristy is stunned that the WLKC covered the phone instead of hanging up. but then i was thinking it might have had something to do with her fear of tying up the line -- maybe she thought it would be better for business to have the phone free for those thirty seconds or so that it takes to assign a job, instead of waiting on the line while someone is trying to call in. but who knows.

That's what I was thinking.

[alula]

I kind of think Kristy just liked the extra "officialness" of there being an extra step in the process. This was a girl born for Robert's Rules.

[sparklymouse]

They did do the whole hand over the receiver/whisper to each other in the first few books. Anyone know when they switched to calling people back and why they decided that?

[booboobrewer]

I noticed that too, don't really know when/why. alula, the extra step does makes sense...I could see Kristy thinking they would appear more professional by calling back.

[zoar3]

^Good question. I do know that in at least one book when Dr. Johanssen calls, whoever had answered the phone asked MA if Stacey was available. Stacey went on to explain that Sitters don't normally reserve Charges but that Charlotte was different. This was from Stacey's Big Crush on Page 26.

[starrynight]

....and I now have another BSC thing to think about that I never did before joining these boards!

[supprazz]

it was the 80's, enough said.