I appreciate these may seem such obvious things to not do on a call, but I have experianced some these myself. Being burped down the Phone at was not a highlight of the phone conversation for myself! At times its not even the person on the phone, but the people in the background not aware how clearly their conversation can be heard by the person at either end of the line.

1. Just answer ‘hello’
Introduce your company and yourself this will allow the Caller to know they have come through to the right company and by giving your name will make the company instantly seem more personable instead of a faceless company

2. Answer the call and then say sorry you need to take another call.
This is never going to give the caller a good impression of you or the company, ultimately, they are going to be left feeling agitated

3. Do the above and then leave the 1st caller to listen to the 2nd callers conversation
The second scenario is bad enough, but to leave the caller listening to your current conversation is unprofessional, not only are they on hold listening to a secondary conversation. The caller you are engaging with may not want other people listening to the conversation – even if it is just one sided!

4. Answer or make a call whilst eating food or chewing gum
This sounds revolting down the phone and your caller doesn’t want to hear you crunching on your crisps or slapping chewing gum from side to side in your mouth. It makes the caller feel you aren’t really paying them attention.

5. Make or answer calls with loud music in the background
Not only the volume but the choice of music is really important, you don’t want your customer hearing explicit content whilst on the call to you or you not be able to hear each other clearly due to the volume

6. Offensive background noise
Certainly, when working in business environment passion override common sense something but be aware of your surrounds. If you have 2 people on the phone to customers consider your conversation topic, your caller doesn’t want to hear you disrespected another customer or talking about inappropriate office talk

7. Leave a caller on hold for a long period of time
If you have to put a caller on hold to find someone or collate information, don’t leave them on hold for a long period. Take an unhappy caller for example, leaving them on hold for 5 minutes whilst you find your manager is only going to anger them more. Take their details and let them know your manager will call them back with 30 minutes for example.

8. Put the customer on hold and then cut them off accidently
Each phone system can be different when it comes to transferring a calling to the relevant person, but make sure you know the basics of putting the caller on hold without cutting them off! No caller is going to feel cared about if you ultimately just hang up on them.

9. Bodily noises
Coughs, sneezes, hiccups and worse of burps don’t want to be heard by the customer on the end of phone. Sometimes a cough or sneeze will creep up on you, but if you don’t have the function to mute the microphone, try and cover the handset and apologise. Nobody wants a loud cough down the phone

If you find that you are doing any of the above maybe you should consider using a live call answering service who can answer the calls on your behalf. This allows you to know the calls will be answered in the correct manor for your customers and free you time too.

To find out more about our live call answering service visit www.pocketreceptionist.co.uk or call 0800 009 6555

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