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The first impression a potential or current customer receives of your business is made by the person who answers your phone. An essential area of training that is often overlooked is telephone skills.
Do you have a specific way that you want your business phones answered? If so, have you documented it? Does everyone on your staff know who is supposed to answer the phones? Do they know that answering the phone is part of their job and not a distraction? Can everyone put a caller on hold and transfer the call without losing the connection? If not, consider taking a few minutes to document your expectations with regard to the phone. Then design and teach a short Telephone Service Class (a suggested class itinerary is included below). I believe you will see a very positive bottom line return for a relatively small time investment.

Why are phone skills important?
Businesses who conduct lots of business over the phone, for example mail order companies, recognize that their employees’ phone skills directly impact sales. But too often retailers who do most of their business in person view the phone as an annoyance and thus, don’t bother to provide training on telephone etiquette to their staff. It is important to remember that everyone who calls your store is a customer or a potential customer. A positive phone interaction can encourage the caller to visit your store or to place an order over the phone. A negative phone experience may convince the prospective customer that it isn’t worth the trouble to visit your store, and may even inspire a trip to the competition. Here’s the bottom line -- good phone skills generate sales and poor phone skills chase business away.

Who needs to be trained?
Everyone needs to learn telephone basics. A ringing phone is a customer being ignored. At Zingerman’s, we want anyone within earshot of the phone who notices it has rung more than twice to pick it up before the third ring. Does this always happen? Of course not. But if all employees know that it is their job (not “someone else’s job”) to answer a ringing phone and if we provide training on how to handle the call effectively, we have a much better chance at answering those calls promptly.

What are staff expected to know?
1. Who’s supposed to answer the phone and what to say when answering it. At Zingerman’s, it’s everyone’s job to answer a ringing phone before the third ring. The proper way to answer is, “Good morning/afternoon/evening. Thanks for calling Zingerman’s. This is Maggie. How may I help you?”
2. The basics of how to use the phone equipment. This includes how to dial out, how to transfer, how to put someone on hold, and how to use any special features, such as paging or in-system dialing shortcuts.
3. The correct answers to the most frequently asked questions. “What are your hours? Where are you located? How can I get there from here?” These are all questions that everyone in your store should be able to answer. No doubt you have other questions that get asked again and again as well (“What’s the wait? What’s the soup of the day?, etc.). So be sure everyone is prepared to answer these questions as well.
4. What to do if you don’t know the answer to a customer’s question. Although it’s impossible to train staff for every eventuality, it is possible to provide guidelines on who should get which kinds of calls and when to take a message versus putting someone on hold or transferring them.
5. How to handle a customer complaint. Complaints often arrive via phone. If the first person who answers the phone can handle the complaint, the better for everyone involved. Angry people just get angrier when they are waiting on hold.
6. What to do when the phone is ringing and you are waiting on an in-store guest. It’s not a perfect world, so sometimes everyone is waiting on a guest and the phone rings. What do you want your staff to do? Let the phone go to voice mail or ask the in-person guest for permission to answer the phone? There is no perfect answer, but if you have a preference, then let your staff know what it is. Likewise, what do you want your staff to do when they are on the phone and a guest walks into the store? The all-too-typical response of turning one’s back on the in-store guest is not recommended. We teach our staff to make eye contact and acknowledge the incoming guest with a nod, so that they know they’ve been seen. They are usually quite happy to browse once their presence is acknowledged.
7. “May I put you on hold?” is a question, so wait for an answer. If the answer is “no,” then don’t put the guest on hold. They probably have a quick question like “How late are you open?,” or they’ve already been on hold and have been cut off.
8. The process to take an order and/or to document a customer request. Information that is always required in the event that someone needs to call back includes a name and a phone number. Attention to detail is always important, but even more so when taking a phone order. Always read back the order before concluding the call.
9. Keep your enthusiasm level high. We want customers to feel we were glad that they called. They can’t see your facial expression or body language but both impact how you are perceived on the phone. So it’s important to smile and to exhibit the same level of enthusiasm you would show for in-person customers.
10. End every call by thanking the guest for calling. After all, if people stop calling, they’ll probably stop walking in the door as well.
As you read over this list, you’re probably thinking how obvious all of those expectations are. I couldn’t agree more. But I also see them ignored day in and day out in businesses all over town. So save yourself the mental anguish of seeing your staff give bad phone service. Be proactive. Schedule a one-hour Telephone Service Class and use the outline below. Oh, and while your mind is on the telephone, have you updated your voice-mail
message recently?

Maggie Bayless is the managing partner of ZingTrain, which is the consulting arm of Zingerman’s, the specialty food retailer in Ann Arbor, Mich. If you have specific topics you would like to see addressed, please send your suggestions to Maggie at mbayless@zingermans.com.

Suggested Outline for a Telephone Service Class
- Introductions and Overview (5 min.)
- Any particulars about the phone system itself -- how to transfer, how to put people on hold without cutting them off, etc. (15 min.)
- Expectations of phone service -- see list above (15 min.)

Telephone Role Plays
- Hello! I’m trying to figure out what to get for my mother-in-law for her birthday. Can you help me?
- How late are you open tonight? Oh, and where exactly are you located?
- I bought _____ from your store yesterday and when I got it home, it was broken.
- Request for an out-of-stock item.
- Request for a product that you don’t carry but that your competition does.
- Request to speak with someone other than the person who answered the phone (requires being put on hold and then being transferred).

NOTE: No one likes to role play, but there is no better way to practice phone skills. Ideally, you want to use real phones to practice using the equipment (on-hold/transfer, paging, etc.). However, you can set up an effective telephone role play by sitting the customer and service provider back to back so that they can’t see each other. This forces them to pay more attention to tone of voice, just like in a real phone call.