Tuesday Tips: How To Answer a (Business) Phone

Today’s Tip: How to correctly answer a business phone.

Most people will, at some point in their lives, be required to answer a business phone. In my experience answering phones and working within companies I have noticed a lot of variation in the way people answer phones or like phones to be answered. Ever since I was trained to correctly answer a phone, with the logic behind why to do it that way (it was my job at the video store where this happened), I have stuck to that way of doing it like superglue on a fingertip.

While many people know how to answer a phone, I’ve noticed many don’t know why they should do it that way, and that’s why I thought it was a good idea to write this post.

Here’s how you should answer a phone:

Good Morning/Afternoon, KiKi & Tea, this is Tamsin

And here’s why:

1. The Greeting

A phone should always be answered with an appropriate greeting. Good morning or good afternoon is the most accepted and common, although “Welcome to…” has the same effect.

Why: Apart from being polite, people don’t listen to the first few seconds of whatever you say, so you should say something they don’t need to hear within the first few seconds.

2. Company Name

The company name should always be stated in the middle. This should be stated clearly enough for the person on the other end to hear it and after a greeting so people have realised the phone has been answered and started paying attention.

Why: People want to know they have called the right place. While you may feel they should know where they have called, they might not. It should be after the greeting so the person calling has started listening, but as they usually know where they have called this is not as important as…

3. Your Name

Your name should be stated last and, as opposed to “Tamsin Speaking” it should be said “This is Tamsin”.

Why: People like to know who they are speaking to and the last thing you say will be the first thing the person on the other end will remember. If you say “Tamsin Speaking” they will remember “speaking”, not your name.

As a side note those who have been trained in this way of answering a phone, and know it’s the correct way, are the most likely to make the annoying joke of “Hello Tamsin Speaking” and incite your rage as you fight the urge to clobber them with the phone. Difficult to do when you don’t know where they are.

A lot of people say “How can I help you?” and while I’m not opposed to this, it can make the greeting a little long if you don’t cut something else out, thus making it not my first choice.

How do you answer the phone? Did you ever work in customer service like I did? 

This post originally appeared here and has been republished with full permission.