Business Culture

Phone Answering Tips

Phone answering skills are critical to businesses. The telephone is still most business's primary point of contact with customers. And the way you answer your company's phone will form your customer's first impression of your business. These phone answering tips will ensure that callers know they're dealing with a winning business.

  1. Answer all incoming phone calls before the third ring.
  2. When you answer the phone, be warm and enthusiastic. Your voice at the end of the telephone line is sometimes the only impression of your company a caller will get.
  3. When answering the phone, welcome callers courteously and identify yourself and your organisation. Say, for instance, "Good morning, Cypress Technologies. Susan speaking. How may I help you?"
  4. Keep your voice volume moderate, and speak slowly and clearly when answering the phone, so your caller can understand you easily.
  5. Control your language when answering the phone. Don't use slang or jargon.
  6. 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.
  7. Answer all your calls within one business day.
  8. Don't use a speaker phone unless absolutely necessary. Speaker phones give the caller the impression that you're not fully concentrating on his call, and make him think that his call isn't private. The only time to use a speaker phone is when you need more than one person to be in the conversation at your end.