Top Nine Peeves about How Businesses Answer Their Telephones

A LinkedIn group of business professionals was asked for their "pet peeve" on how telephones are answered. Eighty-five responses came in, very quickly.

Pet peeve #9: Reaching a recording that repeats, "Your call is very important to us. We will be with you shortly". The caller was reportedly placed on hold for 45 minutes.

Pet peeve #8: The business associate who answers the call sounds irritated at being interrupted by a call, and is perceived as being disrespectful to the caller

Pet peeve #8 (a tie with the one above): When the company representative says, "Would you please hold?", and without giving the caller a chance to say anything, immediately puts him or her on hold.

Pet peeve #6:  Employee who answers a call with a script and sounds fake and excessively polite

Pet peeve #5: Answering the telephone without saying the name of the business and the employee's name

Pet peeve #4: Answering the telephone with very long scripted greetings instead of just the essentials (see # 6 above)

Pet peeve #3: Answering the telephone using a speaker phone

Pet peeve #1 (tied with the one below): When the company employee's English pronunciation is difficult to understand on the telephone and also may not understand the caller's questions.

Pet peeve #1: When the American-born customer service rep answers the telephone so fast and mumbles so that the caller cannot easily understand the greeting. The customer service rep has said this greeting hundreds of times, but it may be the customer's first time to hear it.

Customers in the USA are more diverse than ever, coming from many nations, may have a hearing loss or be speaking to you in a noisy place. Clear speech is crucial for your customers!

Business Speech Improvement provides intensive coaching in verbal skills, including professional telephone skills for understanding callers with strong accents. Check out your options now; one seminar is closing enrollment soon!

Do you struggle to understand others with strongly accented speech on the telephone?

Do you answer telephones a lot at work and have trouble understanding people who have strong regional or foreign accents? Maybe you ask them to repeat themselves several times, and still can't understand, such as this Scottish man in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My40XgYEvLM. Or maybe the person at the other end has a hearing loss, and can't understand YOU! There are more effective methods you can use to get better results in many cases. A new pre-recorded webinar, Pardon Moi:The Art of Effective Listening, explains the problem and offers concrete strategies to improve comprehension on the telephone. One strategy is to ask people to repeat themselves - ONE time. Try these other techniques and see the difference! Frustrated prospects often don't buy. You can't afford that. Get this pre-recorded webinar and see the difference that professional telephone strategies make! Business Speech Improvement provides intensive coaching and products to help people communicate more effectively. Great speech makes business sense!

A tale of two salesmen

I had the great fortune to sit next to a professional fund-raiser today. I asked him the the secret of his success, and he said, "It's all in the listening. I ask them what matters to them, I listen to their emotions, and then I put all that together in a proposal." He repeated, "It's all in the listening." Later in the day I called a company to ask about getting an expensive service. I told the salesman what I needed, stressing that convenience was important in this case. He told me the way the company worked, which was definitely not customer-friendly but was employee-convenient. I told him why I needed it be more convenient to me, and he said "We don't do it that way." Case closed, sale lost, employee clueless. Are you in the business of selling ideas, services or products, informally or as a profession? Remember the fund-raiser's words: "It's all in the listening." Knowing what matters to your prospect helps you emphasize vital points that will make a sale. As for the emphatic "We don't do it that way", that leads to closing of the wallet! Business Speech Improvement provides intensive training in verbal skills, including sales and executive communication skills. Training options include in-person coaching and convenient e-books! Check us out at www.BusinessSpeechImprovement.com  .

Regional accents - and their impact

Many people report that having a strong regional accent, such as a strong New England, Midwestern, Southern or some other accent can impact their careers, even if they continue living in that part of the country. The reason is that they give presentations or make phone calls to people in other parts of the country, who may have trouble understanding them.

Have you had difficulty being understood or understanding someone else who has a strong regional accent? If so, what part of the country (and country) are you in? What did you have to do to communicate?

What kind of training would help in this case, if you were the speaker? Would you want regional accent modification alone, combined with customer service training or with public speaking training? Would you prefer it in person alone or in a group, in a webinar online (although you wouldn't get feedback), or in an e-book/mp3 file?

Business Speech Improvement provides intensive individual and group training, and e-books, on many topics related to communication.

Appropriate holiday greetings: What is your opinion?

In an interesting discussion recently, a woman (in the USA) commented on how uncomfortable she is when strangers wish her a merry Christmas. She is not Christian. She asked others how to reply so as not to offend those offering greetings.

How do you greet strangers at this time of year? If you are not Christian, how do you reply when others wish you a merry Christmas? What do you wish they would say instead?