One of the most prevalent and tasteless mode of interaction is via a telephone or cellular phone system. This is beloved over letters as you get an instant response to your query or proposal. With a telephone call you are guaranteed that the recipient of the data has received the data unlike cases where you have to hope that data will assuredly arrive on time. What is worrying is the level of laxity that people cope the phones with. Because telephone manners are not known, company is lost, costs are incurred by companies and wrong data is relayed. Telephone abuse is a tasteless highlight in company where employees leave home with no other intention than to "touch base" with their networks at the company's expense. Having been a pro for over ten years, I have encountered dissimilar scenarios of phone usage. I have drawn a amount of lessons and tips based on those experiences. In this article you will get a guideline in terms of ensuring this means of communication is maximized bringing value to you as an private and to the company as a whole. When a call takes place, it is ordinarily the caller that incurs the cost to the telephone provider. However on the other hand if your line is busy for the next 30 minutes on personal calls then you are ultimately losing company as well even though you received the call.
Phone Manners
1. Plan your calls - There is nothing more time wasting than person who calls and soon after the connection has been made; they express openly how they no longer know what they called for. If you have such short memory my best recommendation is take pen and paper and line up your thoughts on paper. That way you never miss the leading things you are calling about. When you plan your calls all the time avoid placing or booking calls while you are busy eating. You are to avoid chewing or eating whatever while you are on the phone. Your food will exist beyond your phone call. While multitasking is encouraged, finish from calling people or answering the phone with a mouthful. It is one very unprofessional way of doing business.
2. Picking calls and Passing Messages - The widely approved maximum amount of rings before a call is picked is 3. Beyond that customers get irritated and company goes to the next person on the list. This hope not just for the receptionist of telephone operator but also for every person who uses the phone in the organization. You never know that maybe the person on the other hand is in danger and has tiny time to live or is under house arrest. It could just be a customer who is serious about their time. Timeous picking of calls communicates boldly that you are serious about how you treat other people. You respect their rights etc. In cases where the call is not meant for you then you have an awesome accountability to relay the message in its traditional format (without additives) to the one who was originally supposed to get the message. In that case all the time solicit for name, return number, nature of message (whether company or personal), the accident of the message. Write all this down as you may forget in your busy day. A message like "One of your uncles called" shows lack of interest in the one who collected the message. It is best to keep quiet that to characterize half messages.
3. Get to the point fast - If you are finding for an answer, naturally get to the point about the speculate for your call. It does not matter how nice the voice of the person on the other side is. naturally make it known immediately after your call is received what you are after. On the side of the person receiving the call, please do not waste people's time by pretending to have rejoinder for everything they way. Get the person with the rejoinder to respond. There is nothing wrong in mentioning that you are assuredly not the right person to rejoinder the inquire and immediately send the caller to the exact person. An productive average call must be no more than 3 minutes. You can characterize all you want within that time. Avoid spending time in jay talk, long greetings, sharing unnecessary talk and jokes etc. If the person on the other end wants to give you an A4 side list of things, advise to them that they send email, fax or corporeal document. It is a lot best than recording everything on the phone. You will block one line continually, you will be prone to mistakes as you article etc
4. Placing a caller on hold - Most people (like me) do not enjoy being put on hold no matter how nice the "music on hold" or "advert on hold" is. They just want to speak and get the rejoinder and end the call. Before you determine to put a caller on hold please let them know you want to do so, why it is significant to do so and most importantly allow them to determine whether they want to hold or call again. I get irritated when person makes all these decisions for me while I hold. It may be an instance of me not having adequate prestige on my phone or I am busy in a meeting that needs an urgent response etc. At least I would feel respected and honored if the person on the other side of the line gives me the choice. When you place people on hold do not take years to get back with an rejoinder and characterize the way forward.
5. Use the right language and speak slowly - use the first few sentences to determine the language and pitch of your conversation. You cannot speak at the same speed you would speak while you are facing the person or else you find yourself repeating over and over. I have noticed with cross continent calls that sometimes you have to speak and when you listen you hear a time delay sounding like an echo of yourself speaking. You then wait for the person to rejoinder before you send more words. No matter how much of a fast talker you are, you need to reconsider the recipient's rate of grasping your message. After all, the goal of manufacture that call is to send a message. If you use the wrong language and wrong speak of speech, you will lose the recipient totally and in the end the message is whether muffled with a lot of patches that are not clear or the message does not get there totally.
6. Make company calls only - finish from spending time on the phone discussing personal issues at the price of your employer. In some instances employers explicitly ban personal calls advising employees to use their secret cellular phones for such talk. I have also seen employers who take it a notch higher and ban even the switching on of secret cellular phones at work leaving people to be reachable while lunch time and after hours. I wouldn't personally advise that but results have shown a greater doing on such companies than where rules do not exist. My recommendation is to teach people to be responsible. Even though you are using your personal cellular phone, realize that you are paid for the time you are spending trouble shooting your personal issues. Your owner carries that cost.
7. Be Considerate of others - The moment person on the other hand says "hello", realize one fact; that person is paying for that call. Act responsibly and do the honorable thing. Do not drive your owner into debt Get the most from every tiny - You should record, name, return number, email address and nature of query in the shortest potential time. The moment you rejoinder your phone be ready with pen and paper. Avoid statements like "let me look for a pen". It shows a level of laxity and unpreparedness. When you call someone, say on their mobile, one of the questions you should be able to ask at the starting is whether the person is able to talk with you on not. The mere fact that the call was answered does not warrant that the person is fully engaged to deal with your issue. They could be in the middle of some crucial exercise. Unplanned and unexpected calls are roughly similar to unexpected visits. They leave the one visited with very tiny flexibility than to entertain the caller or visitor. If the person cannot take your call now, friendly ask what time you can call again. Do unto others what you want them to do unto you. I have noticed that in life, people who are sensitive about their space ordinarily jump onto other people's schedules unannounced. It is not fair.
8. reconsider the time zones - If you are manufacture an international call please be considerate. Just because it is day in Asia means it could be midnight in Africa etc. Even if you are in the same city, if you call person nearby lunch time and shortly after normal close of business, you are least likely going to find the person. You may hit a voice mail or be told to call the following day. So why waste your resources. Call on time. There is nothing as annoying as getting a call while you are on your way out. What is worse is that the person on the other end wants to take their time to let you know what they assuredly want. By the time you mention that you were on your way out that is the point when they want to talk sense. Time is of essence; retain such conversations for a barbeque over a weekend. On a company day it is advisable to keep conversations targeted at business. After all you go to work to generate company traffic and improve the profitability of the company not to inconvenience the people you call on the phone.
9. reconsider Language Differences - Use a language that both parties are comfortable in. With Globalization it means you interact with all cultures, races and nationalities. If you expect to do company with the French speaking nations, please do yourself a favor and study French. My feel in China in 2007 showed me how you can go for a whole day without manufacture sense to whatever nearby you. The taxi driver needed you to show him/her a company card of where you were going. On the way there was no conversation. The same thing can happen on the phone. You could be eloquent in English and have no clue how to speak German. Enroll in short courses on linguistics so that you have basic knowledge of the languages.
10. Attend to Calls with safe bet attitude - every person has times in life when they have pressing personal issues. The last thing a caller wants from you is to be greeted with a boring, negative, gloomy voice on the other side which has an attitude that says "What do you want, please be quick, I am not assuredly in the mood to talk". realize that your personal issues having nothing to do with the customers and other stakeholders you are handling. You have to look past what you are facing and smile. A smile can be felt on the phone. It sounds silly but a smile can hide a thousand hurts. Showing the world that you have problems is nowhere near bringing a clarification to you. Be safe bet and upbeat. Who know; you problem could be solved in that one call you are receiving. In one sentence you can characterize a lot. E.g. "Good morning, Xyz Motors, Its Rabison speaking, how may I help you?" as opposed to "Hello, good day". The latter will cause the person to ask many questions which are all answered in first sentence such as "Is that Xyz? Who am I speaking to? Can you help me?"
10 Telephone Manners Every expert Needs