The Telephone Call

One of the biggest misconceptions on the phone is that people can’t see your expressions. This is not always the case. Our voice and tone can convey exactly what our face is expressing.

The most important thing to remember about telephone communications is your tone. Your tone accounts for 87% of how the receiver interprets your message. Your words account for only 12% of the response, and body language counts for only 1%. (Source: “Silent Messages” by Albert Mehrabian)

Our tone, words and body language may change due to many factors, our mood, workload, attitude to the job, the company and the tone of voice the caller uses. How many times have you seen someone or been on the receiving end of a call where the speaker or the other person is clearly not listening? You can hear this from their response, which is slow and often confused. When did you last answer or make a call and during this start to read an email or even start typing? How might you respond to a supplier who is not listening to you? What do you think might be the level of service provided?

Active listening is vital.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt used to say that people never really listened to what he said; they only kept quiet out of courtesy. Every once in a while he would test his theory and say something like, “So good to see you. I murdered my grandmother this morning.” But he got caught out on one occasion when a woman nodded gravely before replying, “Mr. President, I’m sure she had it coming to her.”

The problem is that listening and hearing is not the same thing. Most of us were fortunate to be born with hearing, but listening is a skill that must be learned, practiced and perfected, before it can be used successfully.

Remember the saying: “We have two ears and one mouth so we should listen twice as much as we talk.”

What does this mean to our customers when we only hear and don’t listen? Do you think they notice? If they don’t on the phone they will notice with the level and accuracy of the service being provided. Communications will make or break a customer relationship. For many the telephone call is one of the first moments of truth with a company. Therefore telephone skills must be one of the priorities for the company to address, not just for the receptionist or the call centre. It must look at all of its employees and ask the question… ‘Can this individual break a customer relationship and therefore lose us money’? If the answer is yes, then there must be a process in place to ensure that the individual has the both the skills and behaviour to build the customer base and not kill it!

Not actively listening can and will lead to your customer displaying difficult behaviour. Remember for most customers who are difficult, this is due to them believing they have received a bad service or product.

How then do we recognise and manage these callers?

Abrupt customers may speak quickly and snap orders. We must listen to what they have to say, be service oriented and focus on what we can do to help and speak quietly and be firm. Abusive customers launch personal attacks and may use profanity. We must refuse to justify ourselves, stay calm and defuse the anger. Angry customers may demand immediate action, use loud tone of voice, we must listen closely to the problem, empathise, ask open ended questions, stay calm and don’t take it personally. Remain courteous, propose an action plan – then do it! Arrogant customers may exhibit a superior attitude, like to remind you of your place, we must know our job and do it well, know our products and services, be professional and courteous. Bully/bossy customers tend to put you on the spot, enjoy baiting or teasing, they may insult our products and services. We must be firm, stick to business and ask closed questions to redirect the attack. Closed-minded callers, put up barriers to understanding, displaying a ‘prove it to me’ attitude, they often have a hidden agenda. We must listen, ask questions to probe for hidden reasons, acknowledge and empathise with them.

We must always be professional and courteous.

“Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for.” Peter Drucker