CALL CENTER: TIPS TO TELEPHONE ANSWERING

Phone answering skills are critical for businesses. The telephone is still most business’s primary point of contact with customers. The way the calls are answered forms the 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 3rd 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 the caller will get.

3. Enunciate clearly, keep your voice volume moderate and speak slowly and clearly when answering the phone so your caller can understand you easily.

4. When answering the phone, welcome callers courteously and identify yourself and your organization. Say for instance, “Good morning, IHEMS OVASEES LIMITED, Linda speaking: How may I help you? No one should ever have to ask if they’ve reached such and such a business.

5. Train your voice and vocabulary to be positive when answering phone, even on a “down” day. For example, rather than saying, “I don’t know, say let me find out about that for you.”

6. Control your language when answering the phone. Don’t use slang or jargon. Train yourself carefully not to use fillers such as “uh huh”, “um” or “you know” when you speak.

7. Take telephone messages completely and accurately. If there is something you don’t understand or can’t spell, such as the person’s surname, ask the caller to repeat it for you. Then make sure the message get to the intended recipient.

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.


9. Train everyone else who answers the phone to answer the same way, including other family members if you’re running a home-based business. Check on how your business’s phone is being answered by calling in and seeing if the phone is being answered in a professional manner. If they don’t pass the test, go over this telephone answering tips list with them.