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| | Teletips for Handling Outgoing Calls
By Dorothee Watson
- Use a phone agenda. Before making your outgoing calls, decide what the goal of the call is. Make a mini-agenda that will organize your thoughts and avoid forgetting any key points. Keep any information you may need for quick reference, such as the file on that person/subject, handy.
- Group calls. A good time-management tool is to group tasks such as phone calls. Set aside your phone time for the day, (usually one hour), and devote it to making your calls. Using the phone agenda mentioned above, and giving yourself a time limit, will enable you to handle your return calls efficiently. Find out what the best times are for you to do this, and you will soon note that you quickly get into the habit.
- Remember Parkinson's Law: "Any task expands to fill the time allowed for it". If a salesperson needs to make ten calls and schedules two hours for this, the calls will probably consume the entire two hours. If however, forty-five minutes is scheduled, the ten calls are likely to be completed in this shorter time.
- Prioritize calls. Early calls should include those that set someone in motion to get something done or to meet a deadline.
- "Eat a live toad first thing in the morning!" (And nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day). In other words, make the call you least want to make first so it doesn't "hang over your head" all day.
- Tag....you're it! If you call for someone who is not in, ask when they may be available. Leave word that you would like them to return your call and give them the best time to reach you.
- Call early. Experts have found that people are likely to be in their offices first thing in the morning and can be reached between eight am and eleven a.m..
- Dial direct. Whenever possible, find out the direct line or extension for the party you are calling. Avoid going through the operator.
- Let them know it is a return call. If you are returning a call, say so to the person who answers the phone, it will help expedite your call.
- The 3-point introduction. When phoning a business, the 3-point introduction is widely recommended: your name, affiliation and reason for calling give the other person a succinct, basic frame of reference for an effective conversation or referral.
- Know whom you are calling. When attempting to reach a stranger, get the name of the person you need by calling the company main operator and asking for that information.
- Can we talk? Give the person you are calling the opportunity to let you know if it is not a good time to talk and arrange for a better time.
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