Professional Phone Etiquette

Series Summary

The modern business world is a funny place. A suit and tie can make a man look respectable, neat, and confident; and a woman in a pantsuit comes across likewise. But underneath the finery is a highly competitive collection of industries run not by professionals, but by capitalists. You work at a publishing house, publishing books. You are a publisher. The owner of the company, the person in charge of all the publishers, however, is himself not a publisher at all. He is a capitalist. Shipping delays, paper quality, editor communication—they are only secondary concerns of his. Your job is to publish books; his job is to make money. The distinction can be tricky: you both work for a living, you both try to make as much money as possible, you both strive for bonuses and care about how the company performs. But you get paid for the time you spend publishing. He gets paid for making money. In the world of business, at least these two tiers exist.

In this free video series on professional phone etiquette, communications specialist Tracy Goodwin teaches you how to be professional and concise in your business calls, keeping you ahead of the game and confident in communicating with others. Tracy teaches you how to answer calls, take messages, leave voicemails, and more. You will learn how to prepare for business calls, when to avoid personal information, and how to help customers feel satisfied with their telephone communications.

Video Transcript

"Hi there. I am Tracy Goodwin and I am the red sweater lady and today I'm going to teach you how to have professional phone etiquette. And I'm basically talking about your voice, how you communicate, how you handle yourself on the phone at work. Do you realize that in many, many companies across the country, ninety-five percent of the business, is done over the phone and there's a lot of little things that are so important for you to do when your on the phone. And I'm talking about placing calls. I'm talking about receiving calls. I'm talking about dealing with customers on the phone. I even want to talk to you about voice mail because so many people make so many mistakes on the phone. It's not just an extension of face to face communication. It's actually very different than face to face communication. So, I want to give you some tips where you can be highly professional when dealing with business on the phone."