[patio11]

Clients are surprisingly willing to deal with that. It may be less of a hard constraint than you think it is, particularly if you train your clients to expect that type of working relationship.

I had an interesting call with a doctor client recently. "I didn't notice a number on your website." "That's correct." "So how am I supposed to get in touch with you?" "I recommend email." "But you only respond to email a day later." "That's correct." "Shouldn't you make yourself more available to your customers?" "With respect, doctor, I'm exactly as available as I wish to be."

You would think she'd be mad after a conversation including that, but she actually left happy, because I was able to fix her problem.

[kyllo]

Kind of ironic that a doctor would say that to you. Just try getting a doctor's direct line or cell. It's almost impossible, they have receptionists because they'd be overwhelmed with patients calling them with stupid questions all day if they didn't.

Of course, you could also just hire a remote assistant to field phone calls for you if you wanted.

[patio11]

Working on it, but since I don't have one yet and was not returning voicemail reliably I hid the number.