Showing posts with label telephone tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label telephone tips. Show all posts

Wednesday, 25 July 2012

Tone of Voice is Crucial

When you are talking to someone face to face, you pick up all sorts of clues about their mood and meaning from their body language and facial expression as well as their tone of voice and choice of words. Unfortunately, you have much less to go on when you are answering the telephone. Tone of voice becomes much more important, which is one of the reasons why all our call answering operatives are trained to smile before they even answer the phone.

It is very easy to give the wrong impression over the phone, simply by sounding slightly distracted (perhaps when you are typing the message, or taking the caller's details). You can come across as bored and uninterested. It is worthwhile over-compensating slightly so that you sound lively, interested and friendly. But don't go too far the other way or you could give the impression that you are being sarcastic, which will quickly irritate the caller.

Whatever your role in your business, if you are talking to a client on the phone they are building an impression of the business as a whole from the way they perceive you. If you aren't sure how you come across on the phone, ask someone to listen in and give you an honest opinion.

Sunday, 18 March 2012

Calls We Can't Help With

Here at Zoom, we are experts in call answering. Our Zoomettes have the skills to take hundreds of phone calls a day, and still be happy and smiley for each one. Our message taking abilities are second to none. However, there are things we can't do for you, as much as we'd like to help.

Certain holidays, such as today, Mothering Sunday, throw into the light that which we can't do. We can take a message from your mother and send it on to you via text or email, or however you want. We can smile when we talk to her and remain friendly. But we can't make sure you call her back, or wish her Happy Mother's Day! This is why it's a team effort; we take the calls, divert them to you when we can, or take messages, and then you call them back. On most days of the year, your mother is probably more patient than your clients, but on Mother's Day, a missed call could put you in her bad books!

Our customer service skills are an area we are rightly proud of, so we will always remain professional, but if we are having to take messages from people for you, whether it's your mother or an important client, it is important that you do your part and call them back. We like to think we are good at dealing with angry customers, but there is no need for them to be angry just because they haven't been called back! Check out the telephone tips section on our website if you need any tips in making or taking phone calls. And make sure you call your mum...because what's worse than an angry customer? An angry mum!