…. I’ve had better starts to a New Year. The first two official work days in 2016 have certainly been interesting to put it mildly. With our offices open for several days between Christmas and New Year, we were able to shift paperwork, client reports and actions on estates without reply from the recipients of our communications. The decks were nowhere near cleared but it sure helped. However yesterday, our efficiency came back to bite us as the ‘phones did not stop ringing all day and our inboxes were positively overflowing.
Our work is always fraught with challenges, whether it is an intestate estate, research overseas or what appears to be a ‘straight forward’ family history in the UK (what’s one of those?!). Some of the issues come from records (or lack thereof), some centre around people (managing client expectations) and some revolve around time/cost constraints on projects. I have commented before about requests for quotes for work but we have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous in the past few weeks – one potential client wanting to find a Jane Jones (not the real name of the person) and expecting the cost to be minimal, whilst another client didn’t bat an eyelid at a quote of £2,000 for a particular overseas request!
Although we are often the bearers of financially positive news, we frequently have to break the news of the demise of a family member. Not the easiest position to be in when making a telephone call and not knowing the likely reaction/response from the call recipient. More often than not, the conversation runs positively though sometimes people can be hostile. Our worldwide team are highly qualified (many with counselling/mediation qualifications) and can therefore deal with all calls with the utmost professionalism, no matter how upset/inimical the other party may be during the conversation.
We have been delighted to receive several enquiries in the last two days from friends/colleagues of previous FWL customers. 2016 is definitely about continuing to build on the positive foundations of our first four years as a team at FWL. As we’ve said before – watch this space….!
