Posts Tagged ‘Employees’

You have decided to talk to your employees about telephone communication. Customers are complaining and problems are not being resolved in a timely manner. And while your employees are not always “in the wrong” when problems occur, you know there are some things they could do to be more professional, courteous, and effective. For example:

1. Ask more specific questions about problems callers are experiencing before “automatically transferring” callers to another department or trying to solve the problem personally

2. Apologize when callers complain about poor service, being disconnected, or some other encounter they view as negative

3. Use professional language when talking to callers; avoiding jargon, slang, or overly casual statements

4. Tell callers when their problems will be resolved, how they will be notified that the problem is resolved, and what action they need to take (if any) once the problem is resolved

5. Before concluding calls, confirm that all issues have been resolved and all callers’ questions have been answered

Your challenge now is to talk about telephone communication in a way that encourages your employees to improve. Do this by explaining how any or all of these behaviors could lead to:

1. Less time spent locating information needed to communicate with callers

2. More situations where callers are willing to wait patiently while a problem is being resolved

3. Less time spent having to process a request or resolve an issue that should be handled by someone else

4. Fewer instances of callers having to “call back” with additional requests or questions about services and products

5. Increased instances of receiving more accurate and complete information from callers during initial conversations

Develop your own list of results by thinking about the things employees complain about when it comes to communicating on the telephone. Then, match their list of complaints to your list of performance-improvement behaviors. Keep this information handy. And whenever you have individual or group discussions about telephone communication, use it to show your employees how they can reduce their frustration by improving their performance.

By using this approach, you emphasize how better telephone communication helps employees have better telephone encounters. You show employees that improved performance benefits them and their customers. This approach also allows you to keep the focus on the results you want and steer the conversation away from complaints about customers, processes, or procedures. Try it the next time you want to talk to your employees about being more professional, courteous, and effective. The results may positively surprise you.

Talk about first impressions; telephone greetings are critical. Prospects are deciding whether or not to do business with you. Irate customers are deciding how helpful and competent you are. Yet many companies convolute the telephone greeting to the point that employees hate saying it and customers and prospects dread listening to it. There is power in simplicity. For best results, incorporate three easy elements: pleasantry, brevity, and sincerity.

Pleasantry- A pleasant greeting is essential to a successful call because it sets the stage emotionally. In general, listeners tend to mirror or “catch” the emotional states of speakers. This is a principle of communication that holds true whether one is speaking to a group of 1000, a small meeting of 10, or a single customer over the telephone. In other words, people respond in kind. If we answer the phone gruffly, chances are the caller will become gruff. If we answer the phone pleasantly, chances are the caller will be pleasant, and we all know which caller is easier to work with.

Imagine you are a customer calling a place of business. The professional on the other end of the phone sounds irritated. What is your response to a greeting like that? When I’m a customer, my response tends to be irritation. I start thinking to myself, “Well, you think you’re irritated now? Wait until you get finished with me, then you’ll know what irritation is!” I wasn’t even irritated when I called the company. I simply caught the professional’s irritation.

I’ve had the opposite experience as a customer too. I am irritated, highly irritated. I really want to let somebody have it. I call the company, but the person who answers the phone is so nice and professional I can’t bring myself to yell at them. I hate when that happens. This time I’ve caught their professionalism.

One of the easiest ways to attain an emotional state quickly, like being pleasant, is to use body language. Research conducted by John Grinder and Richard Bandler suggests that body language helps create emotional states. If we carry ourselves with slumped shoulders, frowning face, bowed head, averted eyes, and shallow breathing, we will probably feel depressed. If we smile, breath deeply, pull our shoulders back, and look straight ahead, we will probably feel good. How do you carry yourself all day at work?

I recommend that professionals establish a ritual before answering the phone. In order to sound pleasant, we need to be carrying ourselves accordingly. My ritual is to sit up on the edge of my seat, pull shoulders back, take a deep breath, smile, let the phone ring twice, then answer. I never answer my phone unless I’ve gone through my ritual. My business is too important. Sometimes I’ll even stand before I answer the phone if I need an extra jolt of energy. Stand on your head. Do jumping jacks. Do whatever is necessary to attain a pleasant state before answering the phone. (Within limits of course.)

Sincerity- No scripts. I am against scripting greetings because they sound insincere, irritate callers, and discourage employees. Scripted greetings usually include some kind of slogan. “Hello. It’s a beautiful day here at the XYZ Company.” Now I don’t care where you work. It can’t be that good all day. At some point saying, “It’s a beautiful day…” is going to be a stretch or insincere. The other risk is that the caller is irate. An employee from a furniture company confided to me that she hated answering the phone, “It’s a beautiful day…” because irate callers would snap back, “Well it’s not a beautiful day where I am and get over here and fix this thing!” Is it any wonder why employees and customers hate scripted greetings?

You want the greeting to be natural, which also makes it easier to sound pleasant consistently. The key elements of a telephone greeting are: department or company name, your name, an offer of assistance. An example of a switchboard greeting might sound like this, “XYZ Company, this is Bob. How may I direct your call?” A greeting from someone in the accounting department might sound like this, “Accounting, this is Bob. How may I help you?”

State the company or department name so that customers and prospects know they are in the right place. How many times have you been five minutes into a call only to realize the caller would be better served in another department? Always state your name because it is a sign of authority. Stating your name implies that you are accountable. It also creates a personal touch. Lastly, end with a question that expresses your desire to serve the caller.

Brevity- Keep it short. I have heard telephone greetings that are so long, I feared the person answering the phone was going to hyperventilate and go into cardiac arrest trying to get it out in one breath. Excessively long greetings are unprofessional for many reasons. They don’t sound pleasant or sincere because technically they are impossible to execute. Employees hate them and those feelings come through. Callers hate them because they waste their time. Fortunately, by following the guidelines above brevity is assured.

Summary- Telephone greetings are a powerful part of doing business. To be successful, keep greetings simple. Practice a ritual to be pleasant. Remain unscripted. Be brief.

Gone are the days when telephones were the prerogative of only the bosses. Now every good company provides telephones to all their executives. These corded phones are desk phones which are usually situated in the work station of the employees near where they sit. The executive telephones are rich in features which makes the work of employees – smooth, fast, smart and highly efficient.

Telephones are particularly necessary for sales team or the marketing force in your office. They need to be in touch with the clients on a regular basis. Also it is very important to have a fixed number where the clients can call or leave a message for the contact person.

Telephones are very helpful when it comes to stay in constant touch. For example, usually clients prefer only one point of contact for their project, who is answerable for all kinds of activities going on for the projects in question. If one of your customers wishes to talk to the person handling the portfolio, then one exclusive telephone number for the employee would mean

client will be able to directly call the contact point
no one else, stranger to the client, would be answering the call
client would not have to wait till the right person comes on line

The modern day telephones are packed with new age features which empowers your employees to deliver efficient performance. They enable them to work smart and delivery results in less time. For instance, with the help of one of the most important features – speaker phone-
the executive can work, write or type simultaneously while speaking over the phone
more number of people can listen or participate in the conversation. This way you can avoid meetings to let everyone know about the conversation.

Plus there are many more features which enable smooth communication and reduces the need of unwanted meetings, discussions etc. This gives time for more constructive and meaningful activities, enhances performance efficiency and thereby makes each employee competent.