Discussion on:

10 telephone blunders that could hurt your image

Before getting irritated it is worth while to realize that (in personal communication at least)"hello" often only indicates that a connection has been made, and that it is up to caller, not the called, to identify himself or herself. It used to irritate me no end just to hear "hello", "pronto", "embros" (Greek), a series of numbers, etc. until I realized that conventions differ per nationality. In the Netherlands, where I live, it is normal to identify yourself by name if you are called, in other countries it is not.

I often find that answering with my name leads to the caller asking "is this.. ?". I think this is because it takes the caller a few seconds to realise the phone has been answered by a human, and that they are in fact talking to the caller. Saying "hello" can occasionally save time

Just on the point of answering the phone with hello, I find I generally know the person I am calling and don't expect them to say their name when they answer or if some is calling me I'd expect they already know me, so I feel I shouldn't have to identify myself. I s'pose as I have caller i.d. on my mobile and work phone, I'll answer with hello [name] if I don't recognise the number. That's my two cents! Great article though. =o)

I always answer my business phone with my name, unless it is during a time when we are closed and I happen to be around the phone, and I always answer my personal phones with hello. One big advantage to anwering the phone with my name is that invariably TELEMARKETERS will ask immediately for me by name, right after I have given my name. I can think of no other instance where anyone else does this, and I am sure it is because the telemarketer does not dial the number nor hear me answer the phone. I have an absolute policy of non-participation in any type of telemarketing so I am immediately into refusal mode. Anyway, it puts me immediately in charge of the telemarketer conversation, which of course exactly what they do not want. They then get one chance to bow out before I bow them out.

Where I work we have a policy of *not* answering by name (or by the name of our group, organization, or company) because whoever is calling should already know who they are looking for, and we don't really want to help anyone who is "fishing" for a name or department. Either they know who/what they are looking for, or we don't want to talk to them.

I guess this would be different for a more customer support-type of organization.

- rob

Ah, nothing like directing the call to my headphones.

In fact pass on your number I can always use a few loud tunes in the day.

I remember one guy I called try to play smart arse and put me on hold indefinitely. I threw it on speakerphone and started doing other work while listenign to music. He picke dup a good 20 minutes later, while I know his phone had kept ringing back to his extension and he had to keep stuffing it on hold the whole time, I just asked him to put me back on hold so I could hear the rock trivia answers. He actually did put me back on hold and, when he picked up just a few minutes later, I told him I had to run for lunch but would call him some other time, which I never did. No time for losers, I'll just find his competitors and work to help them instead.

about 20 years ago I was working a phone desk and got "Please Hold" from a voice on the other end of the line and then dead space. I hung up, as it was an 800-hotline for emergencies. This repeated twice. The third time the voice said exasperatedly, "This is Senator Glenn's office, Please hold for him!" Okay, now I know why the actual person didn't dial, but it didn't excuse her lack of phone ettiquette of failure to identify or even to wait for a response on an emergency response line during an emergency. Senator Glenn was actually quite nice to talk to.

The word, hello, was invented for the telephone as a form of acknowledging the connection. (Alexander Graham Bell actually preferred the word, ahoy.) In the old days, it was to let you know that the connection was complete. Today, it lets you know that you have waded through the menus and punched in enough extensions to actually reach a live person.

There?s nothing wrong with answering ?Hello, this is John Doe.? Indeed, we should reserve the use of the word ?hello? for humans to let us know that we are finally talking to a human being.

And speaking of wading through menus...

I am in Customer Service, so I always answer the phone using my name and dept (even internal calls--just because it shows a name on the viewscreen doesn't mean that's the person using that phone).

Anyway, what gets me is after an external caller has gone through the menus, not to mention the "Thank you for calling xyz company" at the beginning of the call, they tell me they have the wrong number when I answer the phone. I will never understand it.

~cr~

The word 'Hello' pre-dates the telephone (though not by much), so it was not invented for the telephone. It did come into much more frequent usage when chosen as the standard telephone acknowledgement, though.

Carry on.

I believe the issue is more about people who answer a business phone with "Hello" only, as if they were at home. Aside from being unprofessional, it leaves the call unfocused, with no one really in control.

Stylistically, I think of that ?Hello, this is John Doe.? greeting would be more of a direct dial/personal line greeting. If you are one person in a call group I prefer something like "Network Support this is John, how may I help you." It informs the caller and gets the conversation rolling in the right direction. Of course, I know this is a little too long and conversational for some folks.

In today's the work climate today there is a kind of unspoken opinion that if you are conversational (in other words not curt bordering on rude) you aren't being efficient (read "aren't working hard enough").

because I have odd hangup calls sometimes, don't know if someone harassing me, ex gal friend, ex-gal friends child of mine I don't know about, someone I lit up and ticked off, who wants to see if I'm in the office etc.

So if I just say hello they don't get my name for free. They should know who they are calling already as someone else mentioned. If they don't they are phishing for names.

I don't consider it rude. I do consider it rude if they hang up after I say my name, and a 'nothing' call, maybe a telemarketer if they don't. Your security is more important than someone who doesn't know phone etiquette.

That said, in certain depts/ places you may want to answer with your name, e.g. tech support for outside callers.

I do think that when you are answering a general use line or phone split that you should at least say the name of the department you are answering for.

Hangups are annoying, but if you have people that know you calling to harass you, they ought to recognize your voice anyway.

I get hangups here too. I tend to chalk it up to personal calls for other people in the department. Since it is against the rules (except in an emergency) they can't ask for who they want to speak to without risk.

My experience has been that most telemarketers and the like are too wrapped up in what they are doing to even notice your announcement.

First there are the boneheads asking "May I speak to the head of the household?" Then the semi-aware people asking "Is this a business?" The second group at least picked up on the fact that whatever they heard when the phone as answered wasn't just "Hello."

One of the reasons business tends to avoid using JUST hello is because that word frequently causes telemarketers and the like(especially the automated ones) to launch into their spiel without listening to the rest of what you say.

Also, on my direct line, I can't remember the number of times they have asked to speak to me after I just answered the phone and told them my name.

Depending on my mood I will either ask "What is this concerning?" (they normally think I am screening "his" calls since they normally ask to speak to me again), or I will offer to take a message, or say "What number were you dialing?... I'm sorry he is no longer available at this number..."

Everywhere I can, I use my middle name as my first name in writing, especially filling out those 'enter your name, phone number, and e-mail here so you can get this whitepaper and we'll forward this to marketing immediately' forms.

I never answer with the name of the company unless I'm answering the main helpdesk line. I like to use an acronym of my department I'm in when answering my own line. Big companies, we love our acronyms.

So, given my name as John Henry Doe and I work for the Redundancy Department of Redundancy, I will answer most calls with "RDoR, this is John". People asking for Henry are promptly flagged as telemarketers, and I can filter cr@p from my e-mail and snail mail just as easily. Internal callers usually know the acronym and know my first name.

It might interest the reader to know that the word HELLO may have originated in Telephone use as Edison's exclamation of surprise (that the equipment actaully worked) rather than a greeting. "Ahoy-hoy" was the traditional greeting used at that time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello

Ahoy-hoy!

on the simpsons

At my work environment, announcing my name and company ensure that the caller knows who was reached. There have been countless times where a caller will hear, "Hi, this is [Bob] with [XYZ company]; how can I help you?" only to hear the caller say, "Is this Bob?" or, "Can I spek to Bob?"

These mental midgets are the same ones who leave a message for someone else - or for a different company - even after you identify yourself and your company in the pre-voicemail message.

C'mon, folks! LTTFM! (Listen to the flippin' message!) Engage the brain and THEN the mouth.

When I'm expecting a really important call, and I have a meeting, when entering or starting it, I warn all the people that I'm expecting a very important call and that I really have to answer when (if) it comes. I always end my warning with "..., all right?".

There is nothing worse than calling someone and listening to how they talk and chew their food at the same time. It's bad enough watching such people spit their food while they talk, but now you have them chewing in your ear while trying to engage in a conversation. Yes, I'm guilty of doing that, but that is because I get annoying sales calls during my lunch hour and I want to piss off the morons who are disturning me during my lunch break by obnoxiously making chewinging noises in their ears...LOL.

Great article and apparently I am not to only one who is annoyed by non-professional telephone behavior. Especially the "I'm in a meeting" and "'Answering with hello" blunders

Tom

> Leave as quietly as possible and wait until you???re out of the room before answering.

Well, not exactly. MORE annoying is doing the above recommended procedure, as opposed to simply opening the phone immediately in order to silence the usually too loud/cute ringer and then exiting the room before engaging in the call. More often than not, it is the cute ringer that the phone owner wants everyone to hear and that they are so important that they have to be reached, no matter what they are doing or where they may be.

Every phone has it. It really annoys me when people don't use it in meetings (or training). Once I can forgive but people who habitually forget and they are usually the people with the worst ringtones.

Should be included in #6 or maybe its own #....
Surrogate greeting in a different language.

I know someone who has their 'Generic' greeting in Cantonese, when everyone who calls him speaks English.

Another speakerphone peeve: Calling someone who has me on speakerphone, and suddenly includes another person in the conversation without alerting me to their presence beforehand.
And a speakerphone alternative, if handsets cramp your style, or for calls you know will be long: Use a good quality headset. Just be sure to concentrate on the call -- the temptation to 'multitask' is greater.

A possible excuse for the "surrogate greeting:"

The executive level staffer wants calls answered by a human being if at all possible, so their phone forwards to their assistant. When the assistant is out, the greeting is "to leave a message for the department director or the departmental assistant, ..."

I think that's ok.

answering with just your name is nearly as bad as just saying hello. why? when someone is making the call, they may get distracted waiting for the call to get through and it is likely they will miss the first word whilst their brain catches up. you should answer with "hello, this calvin sun speaking" or something.

if you think of standard computer-computer communications protocol where there's a preamble/synchronisation phase, a standard greeting handshake (saying names) and then the data, this makes sense in human terms to: i.e. each party must make sure they have the attention of the other.

likewise if you're calling across the room/office, you say the person's name and wait for recognition first!

Something that I find absolutely apppalling is the lack of telephone manners that callers show to me.
The act of calling people, and launching into a complete sales pitch, without first enquiring whether the recipient of that call is busy, is possibly the rudest thing that someone can do.

People are answering the phone because it is part of their jobs to do so. It does not mean that they have all the time in the world to cater to the caller.

When calling, determine if you are barging in and interrupting the caller. Find out if it is a convenient time to chat. If not, setup an appointment to do so.

Otherwise, don't expect to win any friends or influence people with your approach.


K

One of my pet peeves is when a caller leaves a voicemail message with a call back number, and rattles the number off so fast it takes 2 or 3 replays to get it all.

I agree with Feral, my #1 pet peeve is a slow talker who suddenly shifts into high gear when giving out their call-back number. Take a breath every three digits because I'm trying to write it down!

Along with Shellbot, I also give my number at least twice when I leave a message (and a good time to reach me). My pet peeve is not including the area code when they leave a message for me. I guess there still must be people out there who can dial a phone number without needing the area code, but I don't know where they are!

~cr

Or they mumble it, they assume that since they know it well, you should know it well also.

or even better, the ones where even after 10 tries its impossible to get the number. I have a personal rule, 2 replays and thats it. I delete the message..if its important, they will call back.

I always speak carefully and slowly when leaving my number, and i repeat it for good measure.

I share a work area with three other techs in our company. Every morning, three of us have to listen while the fourth goes through every one of his voicemail messages on speakerphone. It's distracting and annoying when you're trying to return your own calls and answer emails with all this going on in the background.

We have a manager in our area who does #1. It annoys me to no end. The weird part about it is that it annoys *his* boss to no end as well, and yet he still does it! Clearly the bigger boss hasn't said anything to him.

The smaller boss clearly does it because he feels he's more important than other people - there are other indicators of this. I'm tempted to take his phone away from him and turn it off in the next meeting we share. After all, the man has a pager, and can be reached in that way if it's an emergency.

My boss has a couple of rules regarding cell phones/pagers during meetings for our group. 1) Both must be on vibrate during all meetings. 2) Pages are only to be answered during a meeting if patient care is being compromised. If you are unsure, ask your escalation point. 3) If you are in the meeting, and your escalation point isn't; your escalation point should have the pager.

I realize that some of this doesn't relate to phone etiquette, but meeting etiquette is related. ^_^

Hate it when people record their name or greeting to make is sound as if they are actually answering. You call and the phone says "This is Larry" and you beging speaking because you believe you are actually speaking to that individual, but after a few seconds after attempting a conversation the phone says " is not available, to leave a message for This is Larry, please press 1".

I let a sales person know of my feelings about this type of greeting, not sure what he thought since I did not get a call back.

Are you speaking to a business or a person?
If a business is called, the phone should be answered with the business's name and (maybe) the answerer's title or name.
If a person (residence) is called, "Hello!" is a courteous invitation for you to identify yourself. It is the CALLER's responsibilty to identify one's self, NOT the recipient's. Remember that a telephone is perhaps the rudest interruption invented. While Caller Identification (Caller I.D.) is available to many, please recognize that you are knocking on my door -- I have the responsibility to recognize you before opening it or conversing with you. (Maybe your time is not valuable, most people value their time and their privacy.)

I got the impression this thread was for work-related calls. I always answer with "This is " at a minimum. It lets people know they dialed right, if nothing else.

At home, I absolutely agree with you. I always answer "Who's this?" with "You called me." A blunt invitation to identify themselves first.

Your 'at home' response is fantastic. Starting now when someone calls me and asks who is speaking they will get the same line. Thanks.

Nobody can invade your privacy with a telephone. That's why you have to answer it, if you don't want to, just ignore it. The phone is for your convienience, not anybody else's.

Another curse: The rambling announcement that you're not in.

I have a hated vendor who's never in. I cannot use the "#" pound key to skip the message so I get one that I have to sit through until the agonizing ordeal is through.

C'mon, people! Make these announcements short and sweet. Get to the point. We don't need your life story. Don't put in cutesy or humorous info if in the workplace. We don't want to listen to messages spoken in slow motion. Speak with some enthusiasm and professionalism. Most of all: Practice Makes Perfect. Review your message out loud before recording it and don't just read it off the page. We can tell.

When I was in school, I worked for a selective health care college in the area as a front desk worker. One of my responsibilities was to answer the main phone number.
I would answer "Thank you for calling {Insert college name here}, how may I help you." I would say 60% of the time the response would be "Is this {Insert college name}" I was always temped to say Nope. But alas, The college I went to insisted on tuition so I had to say Yes.

Oooo I hated that.

-edited because of that damn TR "feature" that prevents editing the subject when commenting on an article.

Unless you know the person. Ever.

I hate that conversation where I get a call and the caller starts with "Who is this?"

My response is always "you called me you should know."

Which follows the enivatible "I saw your number on my caller ID. Why did you call me?"

To which I reply, "Did I leave a message?"
"No"
"Well then I must have dialed the wrong number."
"Oh"

Or again when I worked at a front desk, all calls out of an organization would appear as the same number on caller ids. So I would get calls that went like this,
"Someone called me from this number."
"Well, sir/madam do you know who would call?"
"No, I don't know anyone from {Company}."
"Are you a student?"
"No"
"Have you applied?"
"No, why did YOU call?"
"I did not call, the call could have come from any of the 1000 students, faculty and staff."
"Well WHO Called then."
"I don't know, it was most likely a wrong number."...

Well you get the point. Just don't do it.

-edited because of that damn TR "feature" that prevents editing the subject when commenting on an article.