We held our 2009 staff retreat yesterday, which meant that nobody was in our office. We weren't expecting any guests, but we knew the phone might ring. We did change our voicemail message to let people know we were not in the office, but we also understand that our clients are often working on a deadline, or may just have a hundred other things to do and would love to take care of business right away so things don't pile up on them.

Our retreat was an hour away, and we all piled in the minivan together to make the trip (thankfully, we have a small, good-smelling staff). We were pretty intensely focused on our retreat agenda and never really took a break to call and check messages, etc. We ended our retreat at around 3:30pm and headed back home. During the car ride home, we called to check messages. We had several voicemails from clients wanting to book meeting space, order catering, or just ask a question. We could have waited until today to call them back, but that really wasn't an option. After all, isn't that what cell phones are for?

We called everyone back and talked to most of them live. Without access to our reservation software, we couldn't answer some of their questions, but they were all very happy that we called them back just to touch base. We assured everyone we'd get back with them when we got back to the office, or the next day if they preferred. As the result, we booked a few extra meetings that we could have lost to another facility, so that was an added bonus for us!

Why this is our favorite spark today:
Even though we were all excited coming off our staff retreat, we shifted our thinking immediately back to our customers and took care of their needs. The simple act of calling them back, even though we were "closed", assured them that they are very important to us and we'll do whatever we can to help them have a successful interaction with our company.