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How To Conquer the Interruptions of the Telephone

By: Sergeant Carpenter

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.

You need to schedule time to deal effectively with phone calls, not take them on a chance basis, at the caller's convenience. Step one is avoiding the knowledge of an incoming call. Choose a method 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.

3. Use voicemail or an answering machine. It should be located where you cannot hear it and phones should be turned off. Your machine can offer a courteous voicemail message that simply explains that in order to work better and serve each person with undivided attention, you return phone calls between 10:00 and 11:00 A.M. And 3:00 to 4:00 P.M., for example. It's also a good idea to encourage the caller to contact you using email. Of course, you check email no more often than twice daily, just before or after you handle your phone calls would be a good time.

Customer service and order taking should be very responsive. Farm this phone task out to a company which that charges per minute and specializes in these areas, such as:

1. Direct Connect at 402-758-1200 follow the voice mail instructions to speak to Jim Buck

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 can be found at www.inpulseresponse.com All the services to put together a direct marketing campaign and handle the response.

Establish a second phone number (I use a pre-paid cell phone) that you share with certain special people...those you can trust to call only for important business, who will not call just to "see what you are doing", or for personal reasons. This allows the few truly important calls to get through to you directly. Most of my friends, associates and customers do not know the number for my cell phone. For those important calls that do get through at times other than your scheduled phone time, be courteous, efficient and businesslike.

Don't answer in a social manner like "Hi, John, how are you?" Get direct and to the point: "Hi, John, it's good to hear from you; what can I do for you today?

If John gets chatty you might say: "John, it's a really busy day and I have an appointment/meeting/phone call to make in three/five minutes. How can I help 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."

To summarize:

1. Turn off the phone's ringer to and keep your distance, avoiding its distractions.

2. Give your secretary specific instructions and leave the phone work to him or her, then get a report at your scheduled phone 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. This will allow you to better prepare responses to questions, etc. and allows more effective use of your communication time.

Article Source: http://ezine-articles-planet.com

Sgt Carpenter has taught many Marines and soldiers how to accomplish more in less time. You too can learn to work less and produce more
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