6 Tips for Answering A Business Phone

Courteous Answering Service has been answering business lines for nearly thirty years and we would like to help you understand the importance of business phone etiquette. Here we list our top 6 tips for answering a business phone to better help make a great impression for your brand and company.  

Our top tips for answering a business phone

1. Picking Up Your Line Within Two Rings

Ideally, you want to pick up that caller on the first ring that comes through to your business. Be reminded that you don’t know who is calling on the other end and you don’t know why. If you treat each caller as a new potential client that needs some answers questioned before purchasing your product or service, you will see a dramatic increase in your customer service turnaround time.

By picking up the phone on the very first ring, you are telling the caller that they are important to you and that you run a professional business that is ready to serve them.

2. Answer Each Phone Call With a Smile 

As a business owner, you know the importance of making a great first impression and you also know that you only have one opportunity to make that professional and lasting first impression. Train all staff that answers your business line to do so with a smile. Improving Your Inflection on the Phone through a smile has certain physical reactions. “When you smile, the soft palate at the back of your mouth raises and makes the sound waves more fluid. For those of you who sing in a choir (or in the shower), you know that the wider you open your mouth and the more teeth you show, the better tone you get. The same applies on the telephone. Smiling helps your voice to sound friendly, warm, and receptive.”

Some call centers believe in the smile and dial theory so intently, that they keep mirrors in front of telephone agents to remind them to smile. Here at Courteous Answering Service, our agents don’t need the constant reminder of why their happy smiles make happy customers; after thirty years of answering, we are smiling experts.

3. Greet All Callers With Your Business Name

By training your employees, staff or answering service to greet all callers with your business name, you are successfully:

1. •Creating a uniform and professional way of answering your business line
2. •You are helping your customers with brand familiarity
3. •Before the customer even speaks, they know they have reached the right number

Be sure to start the conversation with an appropriate Good Morning, Good Afternoon or Good Evening. Not only is it friendly and polite, but it also gives a pause before your business name is spoken and the caller has the opportunity to hear the full business name. This is one of our not-so-obvious tips for answering a business phone but we hope that once you think about it further, you see the importance of this in the branding of your company.

4. Listen to Your Caller’s Needs

Our telephone agents go through grueling training seminars to make sure that they understand the importance and under-estimated value of truly listening to the caller’s needs. Sometimes, your callers do not know who they need to speak with about a certain issue or the specific questions they need answered.

A receptionist’s role in the company is so incredibly important and if you do not listen to your callers with full, undivided attention you may miss the opportunity to go above and beyond their expectations.

5. Use Care When Placing a Caller on Hold

The land of elevator music or, worse, dead silence is a tricky place to send your calling customers. If you are forced to place a caller on hold to further investigate the purpose of their call please do so with care. If you have multiple business lines all ringing to the same in-house receptionist, you are setting up your clients to eventually play the wait-in-line game; and they will not appreciate it.

Make sure you keep that caller’s wait to a minimum and get them forwarded to the person or department they need to speak with sooner rather than later. Time is of the essence and you don’t want to waste their time or anger them by forgetting you had them on hold for three+ minutes.

6.Taking an Accurate Message for a Call Back

So you have trained your employees and/or answering service to follow the above tips for answering your business phone and they have come to the point where a callback is needed. One of the most frustrating things for your business is to have a hot lead to call back, but the telephone number your receptionist took down is inaccurate. Imagine the embarrassment your company would face if you returned a phone call and addressed your potential client by the wrong name.

Inaccuracies can be prevented by training your receptionist and staff to confirm the spelling of all names and telephone numbers before ending the call. Take a moment to confirm you have the right information for your caller and spare those embarrassing unprofessional callbacks.

Stay tuned for more tips for answering a business phone

If you liked our 6 Tips for Answering a Business Phone, stay tuned for future articles helping and teaching you how to use caller control, improve your telephone customer service and other interesting tips to help you run your business more smoothly.

Are you a busy business owner that doesn’t have time to train an in-house receptionist? Contact our award winning answering service today for rates on our telephone answering and messaging services. With 30 years of experience in answering business calls, you can trust our expert virtual receptionists to get the job done right.