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First, I hope you understand that my job is to help you learn to re-arrange your work systems to enable you to get more done in less time. For that reason, you will find my articles to be short, to the point and without frills. You don't have time to waste reading a bunch of excess fluff...you just need to learn what to do to get more done in less time. If you do not fully understand, or just need more information, just go to my web site and fill out the contact form and ask your question in the comments section. The telephone is a tool that can be a tremendous time saver as well as a time waster. The key is to make it your servant, not your master....you must take control, or suffer the wasteful consequences. A good recommendation is to schedule time to deal effectively with phone calls, not take them on a chance basis. The first step is avoiding the knowledge of an incoming call. Choose any of these methods that suits your personality and your work situation. 1. Request that your secretary to hold all your calls, and schedule a review or delivery of message slips at a pre-determined time of your choosing, and only once or twice per day. Be kind to yourself and allow enough time to return those which are important, or to give instructions for your secretary to handle responses. If possible, your secretary should be located far enough away from you that you never hear the phone ring, or hear him/her talking on the phone. Use voicemail/answering machine. Should be located where you cannot hear it and phones should be silenced. Create a courteous voicemail message that simply explains that in order to work effectively and serve each person with undivided attention, you return phone calls between (for example) 10:00 and 11:00 A.M. And 3:00 to 4:00 P.M. You will also find it is wise to encourage the caller to contact you via email, instead. Of course, you check email no more often than twice daily, just before or after you handle your phone calls. Of course it is important that customer service and order taking phones should be very responsive. You can farm this task out to a company which charges per minute and specializes in these areas, such as: 1. Jim Buck at Direct Connect at 402-758-1200. Just follow the voice mail instructions to speak to Jim 2. Live Ops www.liveops.com utilizes home based reps for lower cost 3.West Teleservices www.west.com. This is a big company. 4. InPulse at www.inpulseresponse.com Offers all services necessary to put together a complete direct marketing campaign and handle responses. You may want to establish a second phone number (I use a pre-paid cell phone) whose number you share with only certain special people whom you can trust to call only for business; those who will not call for personal reasons. This allows the few truly important calls to get to you . Most of my friends, associates and customers do not have the number for my cell phone. For those important calls that do get through at times other than your scheduled phone time, your only reasonable option is to be courteous, efficient and businesslike. It is best to not answer in a social manner like "Hi, John, how are you?" Get to the point: "Hi, John, I'm glad you called; what can I do for you today? If John starts socializing or getting off topic, you might say: "John, it's a really busy day and I have a phone call to make in three minutes. What can I do for you?" If John is really, really chatty, you might say: "John, it was great to hear from you, but I am late for a meeting/appointment/phone call, I've really got to go." By way of review: 1. Turn off the phone's ringer to and keep your distance, avoiding its distractions. 2. Give your secretary clear instructions and let her handle the phone work. Ask for a report at your predesignated time 3.Establish an "urgent" line. Give this number only to people you can trust to respect your need to work effectively. 4. When you cannot avoid the phone, or if a call slips through your defensive perimeter, be businesslike, and to the point. Be familiar with the purpose and scope of a call before you answer or return a call, then stick to the program, take care of business and move to your next scheduled event. 5. Encourage callers to use email instead of calling. Then you can better prepare responses , etc. and email allows more effective use of your communication time.
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