Power Telephone Technique 2

Try and sound efficient, and eager to give good service, try and sound warm

Never ever eat whilst answering the phone or chew….even at lunchtime

Also never use casual expressions.

We recently worked with a client and one of their people answered the phone along the lines we described earlier and then said

“Hang on a minute MATE I’ll see if he’s available?……

NOT a great impression being created there is there?

So never use casual expressions such as Mate – Love – Dear – Duck etc….

As we said earlier it isn’t rocket science and doesn’t take any real effort to give the right impression. Get it right…..unfortunately few will ever remember BUT if get it wrong, with the wrong person you will never forget!

Does that make sense?

Okay let’s look at outgoing calls

What do you think is the most important thing you can do….. Before getting on the phone?

We at ON Target believe the number one thing is preparation.

Preparation is the key to a good telephone technique, when we pick up the phone it is important that we have a very clear outcome in mind,

“What is the purpose of the call?”

 “What is the objective?”

Is it to discuss technical details or seek agreement on a proposal?

This sounds a simple enough question, however, often people get confused and distracted.

For example, they phone a contact up in order to get approval on a specific technical issue, or obtain agreement over a contractual issue.

They get through to their contact, and then he or she starts to ask questions, or talk about the weather or football or worse they pick up on a completely separate issue they have with project…. and we get so focussed on them we lose sight of our objective, before we know it we’ve put the phone down without achieving our objective or goal?

Does that sound familiar?

To be effective we need discipline and a clear objective.

So at the moment what preparation do you do before you make a call?

Please check out the rest of this series