How To Conquer the Interruptions of the Telephone
by Sergeant Carpenter
Please understand that my job is to show you how to re-arrange your work systems to enable you to get produce more in less time. Due to that reason, you will find my articles to be short, to the point and without frills. You cannot afford to waste time reading a bunch of excess fluff...you just need to learn what to do to get more done more quickly. If you do not fully understand, or just need more information, just go to my web site and fill out the contact form and ask your question in the comments section.
The telephone can be a tremendous time saver as well as a time waster. The important point is to make it your servant, not your master....you must take control, or suffer the loss of wasteful consequences.
A good idea is to schedule time to deal efficiently with all phone calls as a group, not take them individually, at unexpected times. First, you should avoid the knowledge of an incoming call. Choose a method that suits your personality and your work situation.
1. Request that your secretary to hold all your calls, and schedule a review or delivery of message slips at a pre-determined time of your choosing, and only once or twice per day. Be kind to yourself and allow enough time to return those which are important, or to give instructions for your secretary to handle responses.
If possible, your secretary should be located at a distance from you that you never hear the phone ring, or hear him/her talking on the phone.
3. Use voicemail or an answering machine. It should be located where you cannot hear it and phones should be turned off. Your machine can offer a courteous voicemail message that simply explains that in order to work better and serve each person with undivided attention, you return phone calls between 10:00 and 11:00 A.M. And 3:00 to 4:00 P.M., for example. It's also a good idea to encourage the caller to contact you using email. Of course, you check email no more often than twice daily, just before or after you handle your phone calls would be a good time.
Of course it is important that customer service and order taking phones should be very responsive. You can farm this task out to a company which charges per minute and specializes in these areas, such as:
1. Direct Connect at 402-758-1200 follow the voice mail instructions to speak to Jim Buck
2. Live Ops www.liveops.com utilizes home based reps for lower cost
3.West Teleservices these folks can be found at www.west.com
4. InPulse www.inpulseresponse.com All the services to put together a big direct marketing campaign and handle response.
To cover all the bases and not miss important calls, establish a second phone number (I use a pre-paid cell phone) Share this number only with a few special people...the ones you can trust to call only for important business. This allows the few truly important calls to get through to you directly. Few of my friends, associates and customers know the number for my cell phone. For those calls that do get through at times other than your scheduled phone time, be courteous, efficient and businesslike.
Don't answer in a social manner like "Hi, John, how are you?" Get direct and to the point: "Hi, John, it's good to hear from you; what can I do for you today?
If John gets chatty you might say: "John, it's a really busy day and I have an appointment/meeting/phone call to make in three/five minutes. How can I help you?"
If John is really, really chatty, you might say: "John, it was great to hear from you, but I am late for a meeting/appointment/phone call, I've really got to go."
To summarize:
1. Turn off the phone's ringer to and keep your distance, avoiding its distractions.
2. Delegate: give your secretary specific instructions and leave the phone to him or her. Then get a report at your scheduled phone time
3.Establish a special line for emergencies, etc. Give this number only to the people you can trust to respect your need to stay focused.
4. When you must get on the phone, or if a call slips through to you, be businesslike, direct and to the point. Know the purpose and scope of a call before you answer or return a call, then take care of business and get off.
5. Encourage callers to use email instead. This will allow you to better prepare responses to questions, etc. and allows more effective use of your communication time.
Business managing is much nicer when you are able to work less and accomplish more Contact Sgt Carpenter now Don't reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.
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