>
>The secretary for the place my husband works had this problem.  She
>called the LLL and waited 2 weeks to get a call back...by which time
>she'd weaned her daughter.  She had sore nipples and was sure she
>"wasn't making enough milk".  :-(


Maybe I can share a little of what we are experiencing with our NCT
bf line, which started earlier this year, and with minimal publicity
is getting 1000 calls a month. This is in addition to the calls all
of us get on our own phones direct. The bf line is one single number,
which cascades through a system until the call is answered, with a
duty counsellor at the end of the cascade to make sure as far as
possible every call gets answered. Those who don't get answered
(because even the duty counsellor can't answer because she is busy
with another call) are invited to leave a message on a tape which is
then picked up.

The bf line and its technology allows us to have data on timing of
call, what geographical area  it came from, length of call, and so on
which helps us work out the sucess and working of the line.

Our latest stats show that 98 per cent of calls were answered. That
still leaves  2 per cent that have fallen down the cracks in the
system - maybe the caller didn't persist through the cascade, or
declined to leave a message on the tape. And sometimes, the message
on the tape is indistinct, or the mother forgets to leave her number.
Those figures (for the tape) are unquantifiable, but we could
estimate them, and I would guess maybe 10 calls a month fall into the
'unanswerable' category.

So lets say 30 calls a month leave the caller unsatisfied.  Each of
those 30 mothers may well tell someone we were useless - they may
even tell their midwife or doctor we were useless. Sadly, the 30 who
were unsatisfied may be  more likely to spread the word about how
useless we were than the 970 whose calls were responded to.

Volunteer groups, like everyone else, are vulnerable to bad mouthing.

We already have the recorded voice saying 'all our counsellors are
volunteers working from their own homes' which is a revelation to a
lot of people : )

I think it will also help  to have our recorded voice inviting
unsatisfied/unanswered callers to try again. Does the LLL system ask
callers to do this?

The LLL leaders who take 2 weeks to respond to a call may be very
unusual....and it's a shame mothers don't call back,  just as they
might if they were calling anywhere else and didn't get a response.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html