Dial `S’ for success

Many successful start-ups have begun just that way, from a table with a telephone in order to leverage the best connections, hone up on some professional telephone techniques culled from various experts.

Or else you will have the garment importer gritting her teeth at one end of the telephone as you coo sweetly, "Just hold on till I find a pen." Don’t be surprised to find the long-distance caller has hung up on you when you return. Smarten up and get a phone with a call hold button instead. Net users who own SO/HO business should also budget for a separate telephone line if the modem and fax is frequently resorted to. Frustrated callers may disengage themselves on getting a busy tone continuously. Needless, to say, the call waiting facility will not be required on this line.

Apart from a pen at hand, keep a telephone log close by. Select the appointment-book kind, with half or an entire page for each day of the year.Jot down the number and name of people you call or those who call in (you can even ask your family to do the same if they take a call for you). Not only will you end up with a handy guide to finding numbers quickly, it will also be a pointer to how you manage your time and be very useful when you are making your bills.

At the end of the day, feed in new numbers into your computer database or a proper phone-book. If you are going to be out and someone will answer for you, keep a sticker near the phone with details of when you are going to be back, your pager, cell-phone and fax numbers and any message that you want given to a specific caller. Even better, get one of those small soft blackboards for these details.

Impressions are formed on first contact. You just cannot afford to wheeze over the line. To begin with, try and answer on the first two-three rings, sound professional with "Tell Communications, may I help you?" Don’t try to be cutsy or gregarious. Especially if you work from home, and want to sound professional.

According to M K Woodall, author and head of a business communications programme in Oregon, US, "The most important thing people who have home offices can do is to emphasise the word office’ not home’ in their minds. It’s an attitude. If it’s in your head a certain way, it comes out that way.

If there is one telephone at home and several people who answer it, train them to take calls professionally. The answering machine should have a clear recorded message, don’t rush, speak clearly-rules that apply for normal conversations, too; avoid saying er and umm, like, you know, and opt for a pre-programmed voice if your voice message sounds as though you are speaking with your head inside a bucket.

If you don’t have a separate phone line for business calls, you can even go in for some facilities such as voice mail service (a telephone number which some can call and leave confidential messages that can be retrieved by the subscriber) that MTNL provides on electronic exchanges. This is particularly useful for those who do not have a postal address but can do business through the telephone. If you can budget for it, get a multi-feature telephone set that can identify callers, which at the very least will help you to prepare by displaying the name and number of the caller. Together with the call waiting, you will also get to see who is ringing while you areon the first call and attain greater efficiency. "Make your customers feel important when you are interacting with them over the phone," says one consultant. If you come across as professional as well, they will come back for more.