Phone Answering Tips to Win Business

Improve your phone answering skills

The way you answer your phone will form your customer’s first impression of your business. Everyone knows the phone should be answered before the third ring and your answer needs to be warm and enthusiastic. But what else will ensure that callers know they’re dealing with a winning business?

5 tips for answering business telephone calls;

  1. Identify yourself and your business. No caller should ever have to ask if they’ve reached such and such a business. Say something like, “Welcome to Smart. You’re speaking with Pam.”
  2. Mind your language. Keep it positive. Never use slang or jargon. Rather than saying, “OK”, or “No problem” – say “Certainly”, or “All right”. If you’re a person who uses “um”, “uh”, “like” or “you know” – train yourself not to when you speak on the phone. Try saying, “Let me find out about that for you” – instead of “I don’t know”.
  3. Take telephone messages completely and accurately. If there’s something you don’t understand or can’t spell, such as a person’s surname, ask the caller to repeat it or spell it for you. Check how urgent the message is. Then make sure the message gets to the intended recipient ASAP by phone, text or email – whichever method the recipient will respond to quickest.
  4. Don’t use a speaker phone unless absolutely necessary – it gives the caller the impression that he doesn’t have your undivided attention, and makes him think that his call isn’t private – he doesn’t know who might be listening in. The only time to use a speaker phone is when you need more than one person to be in on the conversation at your end. Always let the caller know you’re putting them on speaker, and why.
  5. Train everyone else who answers the phone to answer the same way, including other family members if you’re running a home-based business. Never leave it to chance. Check how your business’s phone is being answered by calling it regularly.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 and is filed under Phone.

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