Guidelines for communicating over the phone

It was on March 10, 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell hooked together those first two telephones and made the world's first phone call.

Despite all experience in using phones, a great many people still misuse - even abuse - phones.

The worst phone users are not tots fumbling through their first dialling, nor even teenagers plugging into their everlasting calls. Rather, the most serious misuses are the people for whom the phone is the lifeline of their careers - business managers, supervisors, executives, sales staffs - people who are, in effect, "professional phoners".

The professional rarely breaks the basic guides to good phone usage. He or she rarely drops the phone, lets it ring too long, misdials, fails to record frequently used numbers, or makes other such obvious errors. Instead, a great many professional phoners misuse telephones in ways that insult callers, alienate customers and lose business.

Here are seven major "don'ts" - practices to avoid in your phone conversations:

1 DON'T HAVE SOMEONE ELSE TO ANSWER YOUR PHONE

2 DON'T PUT A CALLER ON HOLD BEFORE HE OR SHE CAN SPEAK

3 DON'T ASK "Who's calling?" IN ANSWER TO "Is Mr Smith in?"

4 DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE WHEN YOU ARE TALKING WITH SOMEONE IN PERSON

5 DON'T LEAVE ONE CALL TO GET INVOLVED WITH ANOTHER

6 DON'T GIVE SLIPPERY REPLIES ON THE PHONE

7 DON'T MISUSE AN ELECTRONIC TELEPHONE ANSWERING DEVICE

SUBJECT 5: TELEPHONE COURTESY

¨ Pre-Reading Questions

1. Why should businesspeople follow telephone courtesy when they speak over the phone?

2. Can you decide whether you should do business with a company after calling it?

3. Look through a list of phrases below. Explain why the phrases in the left column are more preferred.

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