Telephone Etiquette to Begin and Nurture Business Relationships

By Rose Strong

Do you consider yourself professional? If so, be sure you sound it when calling someone on the telephone.

I answer the telephones at Furia Rubel marketing and public relations and the majority of my phone interactions sound like this:

Me: Good afternoon, Furia Rubel, this is Rose.

Caller: Hey there Rose, how you doin’? Is So & So around today?

Me: May I ask who’s calling?

Caller: Oh yeah, this is Jane The Unprofessional.

Me:  And may I ask where you’re calling from?

Caller: Sure, yeah…I’m calling from Whatchalamacallsitfenterbriztes.

Me: I’m sorry, can you repeat your company name, and is So & So expecting your call?

Caller: Um, yeah WhatChaMaCallIt Enterprises, and oh yeah, I sent her information last week and she told me to call her today.

Me: She is not available at the moment. May I take a message or would you like her voicemail.

Caller: I’ll call back. [Click].

It is interesting how many callers don’t identify themselves or where they’re from. Even more amazing is how some folks can be overly familiar, as if we’re having drinks after work at happy hour rather than interacting for the first time. They also often speak unclearly and even lie to try to get through to the person they are calling.

It’s clear with today’s techno-savvy world we’re often more apt to use email or even text messages to conduct business. However, the telephone is still a vital part of how we operate professionally.

We may have conference calls with many people, phone call meetings with only two people, touch-base calls for one-on-one communication. I don’t think we’re giving up this amazing, 140-year-old invention anytime soon. So, in light of that, when doing business, whether seeking it or maintaining the relationship, it’s a good practice to be professional no matter who answers the phone.

Here are a few tips to help you maintain a professional demeanor on the phone:

After the greeting, introduce yourself and explain where you’re calling from before asking for the person to whom you wish to speak.

Be sure to speak clearly and in a moderate tone so the person answering can record your name. Explain why you are calling and when you can be reached. And by all means, please take “no” for an answer. “No” is a full sentence.

Just this morning, I answered a sales call directed to our company owner, Gina. She was standing just feet away from me in an important conversation with one of our colleagues and was not able to take the call. I no sooner hung up with the caller when Gina’s cell phone rang and it was the same caller. She very sternly advised him never to call her again since he was just told that she was not available, she was not expecting his call, and he refused to leave a message, originally.

Being professional goes a long way towards building relationships and telephone professionalism is a great way to begin and nurture business relationships. Do you have any other tips for telephone etiquette?

The Easiest Marketing Tactic You Can Implement Right Now, For Free

View image | gettyimages.com

By Sarah Larson

When clients rely on us to create and implement their integrated marketing and public relations plans, the strategy and tactics are often long and detailed, supported by data, and taking months and sometimes years to implement.

However, there is one recommendation that we typically have to make to every client, and it also holds true for most other businesses, maybe even yours.

The easiest, fastest marketing tool you can implement right now, with no cost to you, is also one of the most overlooked – your email signature.

Every initial email you send for business should include a full, branded signature. It should populate automatically, so you don’t have to remember (and then eventually forget) to add it manually. And it should include all the information your business contacts need to identify and reach you.

That information should include:

• Your name
• Your title
• Company name
• Company address
• Company main line phone
• Your direct phone line, if applicable
• Your mobile number, if it’s used for business
• Your email address – yes, even though the signature is FOR your email
• Link to company website and blog, if applicable
• Links to relevant social media profiles, particularly LinkedIn
• Any legal disclosure your company or industry requires

For subsequent messages in a thread or long conversation, the signature can be truncated to include just basic information or can be left off all together. With so much business being done almost exclusively by email, no one wants to have to scroll through the same long information more than once. Some companies create two signatures, one for the initial email and a second abbreviated version for subsequent responses.

It sounds simple, and it is. But as with many things in life, sometimes the simplest ones are the most overlooked. The number of emails that we receive every day with no signatures at all – and therefore no easy contact information – is still surprisingly high, even though most business professionals would say, if asked, that email signatures are important.

Adding a signature to email isn’t just a good marketing tool. It is a courtesy to the message recipient. It saves them the time and trouble of having to find your contact information elsewhere. And making business interaction easier and more efficient is always a good thing.

Your Synergies Are Leaking on My Moving Parts

By Sarah Larson

If you’re reflecting today on whether your organizational strategy successfully leverages your core competencies in order to effectuate growth, you are not alone.

Millions of the world’s people are sitting in offices around the globe at this very moment, being assaulted with the most torturous business jargon imaginable. And yet, we continue to do it. We continue to search for synergies and coordinate our moving parts and if at first we don’t succeed, we circle back.

Enough.

Let’s all agree to take a stand against corporate zombie speak. The first step is the toughest, but I know we will succeed in the end if we pull together.

Inspired by a fellow communications professional, I recently asked my Facebook friends to nominate their most annoying business phrase. They responded with fervor.

How did these phrases become so widely used as to become hackneyed? One friend theorized that they are “vaguely important-sounding words that can be inserted into any situation.” Another agreed, saying that corporate speak is a form of cultural expression. Jargon persists because such phrases essentially have become tokens of inclusion – “I speak your language; I belong here.”

Here were the phrases nominated as worst business jargon:

• To your point
• On message
• On point
• Peel the onion
• Circle Back
• Reach out
• Deep dive
• Ask (as a noun)
• Bandwidth
• Core competencies
• Low-hanging fruit
• Inside track
• Win-win
• Work in progress 
• Upon completion
• Robust
• 10,000-foot view
• Salient features
• Organically

If you think they sound bad in a list, they sound hilarious as a song. If you haven’t listened to Weird Al Yankovic’s “Mission Statement,” you really need to do so.

Do any of these phrases make you cringe? Do you have others that you loathe? I’d love – or hate – to hear them.