You have decided to talk to your employees about telephone communication. Customers are complaining and problems are not being resolved in a timely manner. And while your employees are not always “in the wrong” when problems occur, you know there are some things they could do to be more professional, courteous, and effective. For example:

1. Ask more specific questions about problems callers are experiencing before “automatically transferring” callers to another department or trying to solve the problem personally

2. Apologize when callers complain about poor service, being disconnected, or some other encounter they view as negative

3. Use professional language when talking to callers; avoiding jargon, slang, or overly casual statements

4. Tell callers when their problems will be resolved, how they will be notified that the problem is resolved, and what action they need to take (if any) once the problem is resolved

5. Before concluding calls, confirm that all issues have been resolved and all callers’ questions have been answered

Your challenge now is to talk about telephone communication in a way that encourages your employees to improve. Do this by explaining how any or all of these behaviors could lead to:

1. Less time spent locating information needed to communicate with callers

2. More situations where callers are willing to wait patiently while a problem is being resolved

3. Less time spent having to process a request or resolve an issue that should be handled by someone else

4. Fewer instances of callers having to “call back” with additional requests or questions about services and products

5. Increased instances of receiving more accurate and complete information from callers during initial conversations

Develop your own list of results by thinking about the things employees complain about when it comes to communicating on the telephone. Then, match their list of complaints to your list of performance-improvement behaviors. Keep this information handy. And whenever you have individual or group discussions about telephone communication, use it to show your employees how they can reduce their frustration by improving their performance.

By using this approach, you emphasize how better telephone communication helps employees have better telephone encounters. You show employees that improved performance benefits them and their customers. This approach also allows you to keep the focus on the results you want and steer the conversation away from complaints about customers, processes, or procedures. Try it the next time you want to talk to your employees about being more professional, courteous, and effective. The results may positively surprise you.