When I was General Manager of Duffy’s Collectible Cars my phone habits got pretty bad. I got to the point where I was not saying hello or goodbye. I would just say “Terry” when I answered and hang up when I was done. Thankfully someone pointed this out to me so I could correct my bad habits.
In the chapter on “Customer Service”
in my book Business Fits, I address returning phone calls.
The most important lesson in customer service is that
when there is a problem, we must talk to the customer the same day. No exceptions. Prompt communication is essential.
When I took over as plant manager
for a recreational vehicle plant, I discovered some employees were not
returning phone calls. When I asked them
about it, they said they knew what the person wanted and didn’t have an answer
yet. I told them that returning the call
was more important than the answer. As
described in the book, I took extreme actions to correct the problem.
A
couple things that are common with bad phone etiquette involve leaving voice
messages. The first is how people speak
very clearly and slowly when leaving a message until they get to leaving their
phone number. That is rattled off so
fast that it is impossible to understand.
People should say the phone number slowly and distinctly, and REPEAT IT.
The
second thing is to wait a couple minutes after leaving a message. Sometimes a person just can’t get to the
phone in time and will call back immediately after hearing the phone message. It is very frustrating to call back and not
get an answer. If the call is worth making,
it is worth waiting a few minutes after leaving the message.
Some
world leaders now will not take a call or return a call from President
Biden. Is this bad phone etiquette, or
is it just because he is a joke and no longer considered a world leader? How did we get in this mess?
We must fight for fair elections and
take control back from the DC establishment and
Business
Fits by Terry Oliver Lee is available on Amazon as an e-book or a
paperback. http://BusinessFits.com
With what is going on in the country and the world one would think a blog titled Common Sense, Business & Politics would have something more important and insightful to comment on than phone etiquette.
ReplyDeleteYes, there is something else going on:
A WAR in Ukraine.
The nomination of a Supreme Court Justice.
Rising energy prices
Bird flu
BA.2 subvariant
Seemed like a trite little blog post on phones until it closed with a biased political comment "Some world leaders now will not take a call or return a call from President Biden"
Not receiving return calls from country dictators like Putin, Assad, Afwerki, Lukashenko or Kim Jong-un from POTUS is not note-worthy. They do not merit the dignity of being called world leaders. Will a list of world leaders not returning calls follow? Please offer proof that China and India do not return calls.
And what's with the problem with elections?