Phone Etiquette and You!

It's funny how your job can change your point of view on things. I used to be one of those people that would pretty much immediately hang up on anything that sounded like phone solicitation, or use the pre-canned, "I'm not interested" approach without really even listening.

These days? Not so much.

Within about two weeks of starting an internship in the insurance field, I was hung up on by what sounded like an 8-year-old. This wasn't a cold call, nor are any of my calls, for that matter. This was my responding to a call I received earlier in the day. They were basically trained to hang up on anything that sounded even remotely close to a sales call. I never was able to get back to that person! Despite the fact that I was returning a call, I was being filtered out.

For the record, folks, having your day ruined by a trigger-happy 8-year-old is disheartening. What I quickly came to learn is that even when it IS a phone call, this is just people who are doing their job. There really is no reason to take things out on them.

Now, my whole approach is this: listen, decide and respond. It's simple, and I would definitely recommend it. Try this next time you get one of those calls you dread:

Listen: Give the person a tiny bit of time to say their peace. And really listen! The other day, I almost broke my own rule and hung up on something I thought was unsolicited, but it turns out, it was a return phone call. The poor guy on the other end of the phone was probably just new at his job and was a little uncomfortable on the line.

Decide: This one is simple. Am I interested? Yes, or no?

Respond: If I'm not interested at this point, I just politely decline. None of this, "call me later" or, "I'm busy" if that's not the real answer. Just say no if it's a no. This is a part I'm really adamant about because people don't seem to realize they do this quite as often as they do.

Just to illustrate this point a bit, a prospect I was working with a while back requested a call back a week after our initial meeting. I left them a message on the day they requested, and followed up a few more times over the next week without reply. Shortly after, they complained to their HR manager (who I also work with) that I was harassing them via phone. The HR manager asked for some further information, and eventually asked if the prospect returned my initial call. They said that they had no, so the HR manager mentioned that they might want to call me and respond. They did, and let me know they were not interested.

Oddly enough, they were surprised to see that the calls stopped immediately.

Really, they shouldn't have been surprised. Up until then, I seriously thought they were still interested! That was the first time I had heard anything other than a positive response, so I had been left in the dark until that point.

I promise you, as someone who uses the phone as one of their main lines of communication, this won't hurt anyone's feelings. And it WILL get the job done. Remember, politeness shouldn't go away just because the phone is involved!