.
Enthusiastic or bored
.
Tired or alert
.
Aggressive or calm
.
Confident or unsure One good way of making sure we sound right is to smile when we are talking. Smiling relaxes the vocal chords and has a dramatic effect on the voice, instantly making us sound more friendly and relaxed. It is, however, crucial that when the phone rings, we try and put everything out of our mind and concentrate on the person on the other end of the phone. In this way, we can avoid sounding harassed, annoyed, or conveying any number of negative emotions. We need to adopt the right approach to using the telephone before we start. We need to listen carefully and adopt a positive and professional approach in our choice of words and the way we sound.
DEVELOPING TELEPHONE SKILLS
When we answer the telephone, we are the organization, and developing good skills will help
make sure that people will want to deal with our organization and us personally in the future.
The only difference between a business call and calling a friend for a chat is that with the
business call, there is usually a specific purpose to be achieved.
To achieve the purpose of the call, there are three main areas which need consideration:
. Preparing for the call
. Controlling the call
. Following up action agreed after the call has finished
Preparing for calls
We may think we can prepare nothing in advance before picking up the telephone when it rings. However, to provide an efficient service, there is a lot of background work needed.
For receiving calls, we need all the following:
. A good knowledge of our organization, its products or services and our colleagues.
. An up-to-date internal telephone directory.
. A pad and pen fixed near the phone.
. Our organization’s brochures if we are involved in informing customers about our
products and services. A good way to add to our background knowledge is to ask our colleagues lots of questions. If we do not know the answer to a caller’s request, we should not simply transfer the call to someone else. We should also find out the answer ourselves later, so we will be able to help next time.
Transferring calls
If you have ever been transferred round and round an organization, having to repeat your story, you will know what a frustrating experience this is. By following the guidelines below, we can ensure our callers are dealt with efficiently.
. Know your telephone system thoroughly. With the varied or different telephone systems available, we need to know which buttons to press to transfer calls.
. Tell the caller what is happening. Tell them the name and extension number of the person you are transferring them to, so that if they do get cut off, they can get back to the right person.
. If the person we wish to transfer the call to is engaged or unavailable, we should give
the caller options on how to proceed:
o to hold until the person is free
o to leave a message with you for the right person to ring back
. If the caller opts to hold, keep going back to them to tell them what is happening. Do give them a chance to reply. If the wait becomes lengthy, they may decide to ring back later.
Making calls
We can often prepare much more thoroughly before we make a telephone call ourselves, and
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