What time is it reasonable to call?

[KM38]

You’re calling a self employed tradesperson. Plumber/plasterer/carpet fitter etc. NON EMERGENCY! Main number listed is a landline. What hours of the day would you feel it’s reasonable to call to enquire about work? 🤔

9-6pm

9 to 5

Yep 9 to 5

9-6 but my partner gets calls at half 9/10 enquiring about jobs 🙄

@trevthecat Yeah, this comes off the back of a conversation with my Dad. Self employed carpet fitter who is always getting calls at silly o’clock. So far this week he had a call at 6.10am on Sunday morning - wanting a job done that day 😂 and a call at 11.30pm last night to enquire about availability 🙈

Personally I think maybe 8/8.30am-6/6.30pm is pretty acceptable.

Between 8 - 6 monday - Friday maybe Saturday 8-12. Voicemail should be on to capture those that call out of hours

Id say 9-6 Mon-Fri but most people take no notice. I've had calls at 10pm on a Saturday and early Sunday morning and I'm just a cleaner.

9-5 Monday to Friday. I wouldn't ever contact anybody regarding work outside of those hours or days.

9-5.

Personally I would think that a self employed trades person should have a work phone and a personal phone, so they can switch the work one off out of hours, just like you would for a normal work phone. I'd say 8.30-6 is acceptable to call.

If it's only the landline listed I would assume an office number/would automatically switch to VM at whatever time. I would have no problems calling at 9-10pm or whatever but wouldn't expect it to be answered.

I'd say 8 to 6 Monday to Friday is reasonable, if I have a question outside those hours I would send a text or WhatsApp message.

I have always stuck to business hours, but I have come to a dawning realisation that this is the very worst time to try and contact trademen with no office support, who run everything through their mobiles.

Up to about 8pm? 10-5 at weekends, although I'm old fashioned enough to still avoid Sundays. I'd much prefer to speak to them during business hours TBH, but most don't seem to be able to do that.

Expecting someone to pick up: 9-6pm, possibly 8.30am.
Being willing to leave a message: any time that's convenient for the customer as the business owner will pick them up during business hours.

The issue to me is that the home landline is the business contact number? If I was contacting a business on a landlines I would assume they had offices, not get their family home. Can he not get a work mobile and then turn it off when he doesn't want calls?

Agree with pps, about 8.30 am to maybe 6.30pm latest would be acceptable. And Saturdays up til about 1pm. Not Sundays or Bank Holidays obviously.

10pm is so rude! People might be in bed.

@ShinyMe

Personally I would think that a self employed trades person should have a work phone and a personal phone, so they can switch the work one off out of hours, just like you would for a normal work phone. I'd say 8.30-6 is acceptable to call.

Phones and phone contracts are quite expensive though, and not everyone wants to carry two phones round with them all the time.

Up to about 7 or 8pm as during the working day they’re presumably busy working, as are many of their customers. Wouldn’t have a problem with getting an answer phone message as long as they called me back the following day.

But as PP have said, a business mobile phone is better than a landline so it can be switched off out of hours.

@ShinyMe So would I but Dads quite old school and just uses the house landline 🤣 has done for 30 years 🤣

@LolaSmiles It doesn’t bother him 🤷🏻‍♀️🤣 hes always had phone calls at all hours but those 2 this week were really out of hours in my opinion 🙈 I was just asking out of interest what other people thought was reasonable 😊

The 9-6 comments are reasonable. However, the internet retailing model has probably skewed many people's ideas of what is a reasonable time to contact someone. Then there are those who treat trades people and indeed those in retailing not as if they were providing a service, but as if they were servants of Victorian times.

I'd phone/txt between 8-6 but email at any time as they don't disturb someone in same way. I wouldn't expect a response to an email outside or business hours but I do a lot of my life admin in the evening after work.

@LolaSmiles It doesn’t bother him 🤷🏻‍♀️🤣 hes always had phone calls at all hours but those 2 this week were really out of hours in my opinion 🙈 I was just asking out of interest what other people thought was reasonable
It's only really out of order to call at odd hours if you know you're calling someone's family landlines and you're expecting them to answer.

If someone has a situation, and calls a business number at 6.30am they're probably not expecting the phone to be answered. They're probably expecting to get a voicemail which will be picked up during business hours.
Same for later evening calls. Few people would expect an office or business premises to be open at 10pm, but if they have been at work all day, they call to leave a message.

It's like putting in a contact us form on a website. You're not expecting someone in the office at 9pm when you're putting in your request, but you're not going to wait until a non-convenient time just in case the business owner doesn't separate their personal and business modes of contact.