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Teach every employee to answer the telephone with their name. Companies wonder after spending so much money on advertising and promotion why their customers are disgusted with their service. Poor telephone manners contribute to some of this problem so change this by standardizing your employees’ responses to your valuable customers. If you do not tell them how to answer the telephone, they will decide themselves.
Teach your employees the correct way to answer your company’s incoming calls.
- “Hello, this is Tom Short. May I help you?”
- “BDD Construction. This is Tom. May I help you?
- Culver’s Cookies. This is the receptionist. How may I help you today?
- “Good morning, ABC Company, this is Susan Andre, may I help you?”
- “Hello, Accounting Department, this is Helen Boytenger. May I help you?”
- “Hello, this is Andy in QC, how can I help you?
- “Hello, this is Belden in the Receiving Department, how may I help you?
- “Hello, machine shop, this is Sharon Sylvia, may I help you?”
Your customers should not have to ask “Who is this?” Why should your callers be forced to ask your employees who they are when they call company telephone numbers? When your employees mumble and answer the telephone, “Hello?” or “Yeah?” it reflects badly on the company.
Your employees will continue to embarrass you until you train them. Your employees will not stop until you tell them how to answer the telephone properly. Callers automatically think they are going to have problems getting an answer or getting anything done upon calling and hearing a grunt at your firm. Stop this from happening. This occurs immediately within the first minute, after the customer’s first call to your staff.
‘Poor etiquette’ on the telephone also implies ‘poor service’. When customers have to guess who they are speaking with, they figure your firm is run poorly. They assume that all your employees are incompetent simply because they sound untrained. This surely is not true, but because of this one bad habit of answering the telephone unprofessionally, this taints your entire sales and marketing program.
Answering the telephone professionally costs you nothing and gains everything. Callers should immediately know who they are talking to when the company person picks up and properly answers telephone. This professional method of answering the telephone should occur at all company locations and on every cellular telephone owned by the company. Do this and a level of professionalism starts to permeate your firm and simultaneously your customers will appreciate the improvement. It costs you nothing and gains you a lot.
