Telephone Basics: Separating Yourself from the Competition
by Bob Lucas, BS, MA, MA, CPLP
One basic strategy for successfully providing effective customer service over the telephone is to thoroughly understand all phone features and use them effectively. This may seem to be a logical and simple concept, but think about times when you called a doctor's office and someone did a poor job in handling the call. For example, they attempted to transfer you, or put you on hold, or did not communicate clearly. If the transfer was successful, you were lucky. If not, you probably could not understand what happened, got disconnected, were connected to the wrong party, or heard the original person come back on the telephone to apologize and say something like, "The call didn't go through. Let me try again." Sound familiar? If so, use the following strategies to ensure that you do not deliver similar poor service.
