Business telephone talk

Much of day-to-day business is often carried out over the phone. English business telephone talks are clearly structured and strongly intended. They have an expectable overall organi­zation that admits just one topic; such monotopical calls are typical for routine business calls or service inquiries. According to their intentions or purposes they can be easily classified into the following general groups: giving information, requesting information, confirming information, making arrangements, per­suading the called party, negotiating and complaining.

The typical structure of business telephone talks presumes the following phases:

a) opening phase - summons (the telephone rings), greeting and identification;

b) main phase - reason for calling and topic of conversation;

c) closing phase - acknowledgement and parting.

The nature of a telephone talk, which is restricted by audio channel, demands to observe not only the general rule of conversation (one at a time), but also social rules. It refers to principles of cooperation and politeness, as well as etiquette rules, that regulate business telephone talks, sometimes called “telephone etiquette”. These tend to have sufficient number of etiquette formulas of greeting and parting, formulas of politeness, polite requests and addresses. These regulations are intended to bring a business telephone talk to a successful accomplishment.

The most efficient companies consider the telephone as an important part of their image. Selling by phone is an obvious area but everyone should know how to use the phone effectively, how to give a good impression of the company, how to maintain and build a good relationship with clients, especially with clients you have never met.

The most obvious thing is to plan your telephone call; know the name of a person whom you want to speak to, and what you want to say.

· Make desk preparation: paper, pen, relevant documentation, computer files.

· Write down in advance what you want to say in English.

· List the questions you need to ask.

· Check recent correspondence, know the situation.

· Have your diary at hand, so you can fix appointments.

· Keep a list of the most frequently used phrases next to the phone.

Remember: If you are not prepared it sounds unprofessional and wastes a lot of time too.

In the case if you are called, keep a list of phrases that can help you to control the conversation. At the beginning of the talk: "How can I help you?" or "Nice to hear you." When things go wrong or you did not understand: "Excuse me, I didn't hear you."; "Could you repeat this, please?"; "It's a very bad line. Can I call you back?", etc.