The Telephone: Your First Impression for Success

People form opinions and make judgments about us in the first 60 seconds of a meeting or when speaking with us on the phone. Statistics indicate that 87% of people's opinions are formed based on the tone of our voice while only 13% is based on the actual words we use.

The 500 most frequent use words in the English language have 14,000 meanings depending on how they are used. So what does this all mean to your office and the success that you're going to have with your clients?

Everything!

In our office, the person who answers the phone is not called a receptionist. They are called a D.F.I. that stands for Director of First Impression after all, they are the first impression that anyone receives when they call our office.

My question to you is, what do you want that impression to be? Do you want it to be an impression of an extremely busy business where they have to wait for hours just to get excellent service? Or do you want to be in a business that is ready to accept new clients and customers and provide first class and timely service to meet all your customers’ desires.

So which one is it going to be? If you want your first impression to be one of a successful business that will grow and thrive here are some simple steps that you can take to put you on the right course:

1: Answer the telephone by the third ring.

2: SMILE

3: Make sure your greeting his professional.

4: Be prepared before you answer the telephone.

5: Be an active listener.

6: Return phone calls promptly.

7: Check your messages frequently.

If you take the following seven steps you will soon be on the right path to making the telephone your first impression for success.