Time Management Tips for Inbound Phone Calls
Part 1: Time Management Telephone Tips
By Susan Ward, About.com Guide
Inbound phone calls can eat up a lot of time and seriously decrease your productivity by pulling you away from other tasks. But just as there are ways of handling outgoing phone calls that will improve your time management, there are ways of handling inbound phone calls to cut down on the amount of time you burn up speaking on the phone. These phone answering tips will help.
Time Management Telephone Tips For Inbound Phone Calls
1) Answer your telephone with a proper business phone greeting.
For instance, when answering the phone say something such as, "Cypress Technologies. Susan speaking. How may I help you?" This not only lets the caller know that they've reached a business, but puts the onus on him to answer the question, saving time on exploratory questions such as, "Is this Cypress Technologies?", and idle chit chat.
2) Think and prioritize as you speak.
Is the call best handled right now or later? Many of the telephone calls businesses receive are quick inquiries that are easily answered, such as, "How late are you open?" But others involve more complex and time-consuming answers. If that's the case, tell the caller so, and ask when it would be convenient to call her back to discuss it.
3) Use techniques such as paraphrasing and summarizing to keep phone calls on track.
If you're speaking to someone on the phone who seems to want to chat or stray from the point, say something such as, "So what I hear you saying is..." or "So the key points are..." or "Is (insert summary) a fair summary of what you were saying?" It's hard to be chatty with someone who refuses to chat.
4) Get in the habit of closing each inbound phone call with a summary of whatever action you and the caller have agreed to take.
While this will only take seconds in most cases, it can save you a lot of time by avoiding errors and the need to double-check. For instance, after a conversation during which you arranged a meeting with a client, you might say, "Good. I'll meet with you at your office at (insert location) at 10 a.m. tomorrow and we'll go over the samples together."
There are another six time management tips for handling inbound phone calls on the following page; click "next" to continue on to page two.
More Telephone Tips
Here are more time management tips to handle inbound phone calls efficiently. (See Time Management Tips for Outgoing Phone Calls for more time-saving ways to handle calls.)
5) Keep a message pad and writing implements by all your phones, so you can jot down details during the inbound phone call.
This is not only good time management at the time, helping to keep you focused on the call, but a help to time management later if you need to find and/or review the details of a particular conversation.
6) Give your clients and customers the email option.
Many of them will use email to contact you rather than phoning if they know what your email address is. Ensure that your company's email address is prominent on your business cards and on your website, if you have one. If you have their email addresses, send email to your current clients and customers, mentioning the email option and presenting it as a way to improve communications.
7) Use technology to manage the time you're spending answering the phone.
As a minimum, your business should have an answering machine and voice mail. Set these up with appropriate business scripts, and use them to answer the telephone for you when you're out of the office or need to work on something uninterrupted. Then schedule time to answer these telephone messages each day. In terms of time management, you'll gain valuable time by grouping telephone calls together.
8) If you're running a home-based business, get a separate business phone or line.
You need to have a second "business-only" telephone with its own "business-only" answering machine and/or voice mail. Not only is this more professional, but it will save you the time it takes to wade through messages and determining which ones are business-related.
9) It's always best to have a person answer the phone.
Having a machine pick up or worse, an automated "choose one of these numbers" system is a real turn off that will cost you business when people don't bother to leave messages or call back. If answering inbound phone calls is taking up too much time during your day, consider hiring a receptionist or a professional answering service to answer the phone for you. The cost of having someone else do it may be more than offset by the increase in your productivity and better sales.
10) Keep a written script of frequently asked questions (and answers) posted by your phone.
It saves you and your employees time t have to search for answers or think about how to answer a particular request when answering the phone.
Telephone Tips Summary
Remember, the telephone is supposed to be a business tool, not an intrusive timewaster that rules your working day. Handling your inbound phone calls according to these time management tips will help you better manage your time, improve your productivity, and put your telephone back in its proper place - helping you run your business rather than
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