It’s Too Late to Stop The Computers

I’m going to watch the work that comes in for the next ten days or so.  I am beginning to think I may have to modify what I call our “quite times”.  If you remember, last month was busy without much letup.  Our workload on the second day of the month is suppossed to be zilch or close to it.  However, we received 65 from one company, 1 from another, 2 from yet another and 35 from a company that just sent a bunch of requests to us on the 25th.

There was no need for me to work a route today but since there was one insurance loss inspection scheduled for 10:00 am, we put together a small route of twenty-six inspections in areas close to the insurance loss.  I was only gone about three hours and came in to do research for an addition to the manual.  I am adding a couple of completely new sections and a lot of research is required.

I did not call any companies today as I have found that Friday’s is really not a good day to tie people up on the telephone.  I did make a phone call late yesterday and I want to pass on the information from that conversation.

I called Rita - she’s writing for TheRepReportâ„¢ now - and had a talk with her about company/rep relationships.  Specifically, I asked if human interaction, personalities, favoritism, personal disklike or even good old business relationships had anything to do with field service assignments from the larger outfits.  It didn’t take her long to say “NO”.  As I thought, the computers are keeping track of turnaround time, contact ratios and the like.  Basically the computer is making the decision based on these factors.

I cannot say if this is true for all companies or even for what size company.  I do know though, from my conversations with companies of all sizes around the country, most are moving to the Internet and soon will have no more transfer of paper with field reps and I suppose very little personal interaction.

One of the chapters I am updating in the manual is the information on organizations, groups, and links of interest to anyone in the field services business.  If you have not found the Insurance and Mortgage Services Group yet, you can follow this link.

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.  We received fourteen special requests inspections for Baldwin county.  I have not worked that area for many months, so Vickie and I have decided to make a day of it.  We have the inspections routed and we plan to take our time, stop where we want to stop, eat a good meal or two and just enjoy ourselves while generating a little income too!  (1•25)+(26•6.50)