Why clients should be charged for phone calls

It seems that there are certain professions where billing clients for phone calls is acceptable and even expected. I have, on several occasions, received invoices from my lawyer and my accountant for advice given over the phone. Well, I graduated from college just like they did, and I feel my time is worth just as much. I’m aware of numerous large advertising firms that will bill for phone calls, but when you own a small business it’s more difficult to get away with this. If I could get away with charging for calls, I would at least feel that my days weren’t a complete waste of time. In a perfect world, here are some of the calls I would love to charge for.

If a client calls me before 8:00 am or after 6:00 p.m. they should be billed. I’m not sure when my clients decided that 9:00 p.m. was an appropriate time to call my cell phone, but then again my clients have no boundaries. I actually picked up the telephone while at my daughter’s soccer scrimmage a few weeks ago. I always pick up my phone, just in case of an emergency. So, I answer the phone and on the other end is one of my good clients. I politely tell him that I’m at my daughter’s game and ask if everything is ok. The fact that I have a life doesn’t phase him a bit. He proceeds to tell me that he is extremely frustrated because he’s at Panera Bread and can’t send any emails from his computer. It simply must be my fault because I set up the email account. Here’s a fair warning to all of you who build websites and set up email accounts for clients; if they can’t log into their email account, they will call you. If a tree is lying across their front yard and they have lost power, they will still call you to see what the problem is.

Not that I don’t love giving free advice, but if you call me to ask how to do something that I would normally charge for, you should be billed for the call. For example, we have clients that want to know how to use adobe suite software. They purchase the software because they feel they are paying us way too much for design. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know the first thing about the software, or a Mac for that matter. So, what do they do? They call us and ask for a step-by-step tutorial. It’s not like learning adobe suite is hard right? It only took us years of courses in college and 20 years designing to learn adobe suite, but I’m sure one phone conversation will teach them all they need to know. The things people will do to save money never ceases to amaze me.

Probably the most irritating phone call is from the client who refuses to write anything down. You’re the first person they call when they can’t remember a password, a phone number, an email address or an invoice amount. I have a client who likes to call me every time he’s ready to pay an invoice. He always calls and says “Can you tell me how much that invoice was for again?” and I say “I’ve emailed it to you three times” to which he responds, “I know, but I don’t want to have to look it up”. Does he think I don’t have to look it up? I’m pretty good, but I don’t remember all of my client’s invoice amounts off the top of my head. A client this lazy, deserves to pay.

Last but not least is the chatty patty. This is the client you dodge calls from for two days praying to God they will just send you an email. On the third day after ignoring at least five calls, you finally pick up the phone with a sense of impending doom. They proceed to tell you without drawing a breath everything that has happened between the time you spoke last and now. You sit on the phone while beating your head against your desk, because you know at some point in the conversation they will get to the point. Just as you are about to lose all will to live, they finally say, “The reason I called is”. Never in the history of the English language have any five words been sweeter. I like to call this the torture call, and if I could charge for it, it would go for double our normal hourly rate.

When our firm finally gets to the point where we can start billing for ludicrous phone calls, I’m going to purchase four large red stamps to place across our invoices. They will read: Rude, Cheap, Lazy and Pure Torture. Perhaps it’s better for everyone if my company never becomes successful enough to get away with this, but I have found the ruder you are to clients the more they like you. It’s one of those unexplainable phenomenons. Until then, I will keep answering ridiculous phone calls that make my blood pressure rise to an abnormally high level.