Phone Manners (In a letter from a very special lady)

Oct 07

Telephone Manners: How are yours? I made my living answering telephones, so I’m very aware of my phone manners as well as others. I’m not saying mine are perfect, but here’s some tips that I have found helpful for me to do as the receiver and caller.

1) I don’t start talking before I have the phone piece to my mouth. Wondering what someone just said is awkward when you go thru this ‘hello’ ‘hello?’ period.

2) After 20+ years, I always identify myself to my sponsor (Hi Milly, this is Debbie), and also with everyone I call. There are few things more annoying than a person asking me a bunch of questions and I don’t know who I’m talking to.

3) In phone sales they always said ‘have a mirror in front you and smile while on the phone - it’ll come through the line’ … and it really does. I’m not suggesting that you plaster a smile on your face like a bad face lift, but a pleasant tone when answering the phone is great.

4) When leaving messages, speak clearly. Don’t rattle off your name and phone number where it sounds on the other end like a blurrrrrrrr. If I want them to call me back, I ask them to - and then leave my information clearly. It really helps.

5) One thing I find annoying - not that any of you do it - but often times when I make birthday calls I get the call-screening-grilling. I’ll say “is so & so there?”, coldly ‘who’s calling’ “Debbie Davis” ‘what’s it about’ “umm, I’d like to wish them a happy birthday today” ‘oh, yeah, it’s me’. Well - I’m glad it is. I know that some people get a lot of nuisance calls, and so do I at times, but that doesn’t mean anything more than politely saying “no thank you, please remove me from your call list, and I’m hanging up now.”

6) One last thought - now & then, call yourself, and see how your voice mail/answering message sounds. Would you like to talk to you? If you cannot understand your message, how will someone else? On my cell phone I know I have the music “please enjoy the music while you’re party is being reached …” and then launches into the theme from Gone With The Wind. To me it sounds pleasing and people have commented on how they enjoy it. But there are some people I call and the music on the other end is so irritating and I can’t understand it anyway, that I just want to hang up.

So - some thoughts to think about … or not.