Home-Based Business Performance: Beware of Business Phone Etiquette

If you are running a small home-based business, it is likely that you do not have many human resources to deal with your business partners. However for most of the small home-based business owners, just one or two business partners can severely affect their business performance. Proper techniques to deal with your valuable business partners is therefore extremely vital for your home-based business success and money earning plan.

Here we want to share with you the right business phone etiquette you must learn in order to handle your home-based business partners properly:

(i) Before and During the Call.

First of all, it is suggested to constantly practice you tone before making an actual phone call to ensure that you can achieve the right pitch, tone and volume of voice when speaking over the phone. This will help the listener over at the other end to interpret what is actually being said beyond the verbal cues.

Once you make your phone call for business matters, always begin by identifying yourself, what company you belong to, and your business position. Then, indicate the name of the specific person you wish to talk to. But take note that you have to be polite when requesting to speak to that person because you'll never know when they might be busy attending to something equally important.

Similarly, if you are the one answering a phone call, make sure to assume a professional but pleasant tone. As when you are the one calling, identify your home-based business organization and also yourself politely. This straightforward approach of phone communication is preferred in the business setting wherein almost everyone works at a rapid pace.

(ii) Answering or Responding to Phone Calls.

The second important etiquette feature in a business phone system is the hold feature. This particular feature produces dual results such that it will enable you to attend to urgent cases and still be able to maintain your communication with the person on the other line. However, there is a specific way to do this right to avoid offending the other person on the phone and to avoid wasting their precious time.

Should you are about to put someone on hold, make sure to ask them first if they would allow to be kept on hold for a short while. Wait for their answer before you leave and attend to an urgent task. Never leave them with no idea where you just go to. Make sure you only hold them up in a professional way. It is because building up business trust is important but very difficult especially for small home-based businesses. Business trust is the key for your business success and will surely affect your home-based business performance as well as your future money earning potential.

If they are indefinite about being kept on hold, clearly and calmly explain to them the necessity of attending to another matter while you are talking on the phone. Make them feel that this does not render them unimportant, but that there is a sense of urgency about this other matter. If you are going to cause inconvenience to the person you are speaking to, make sure that you explain it to them fully. However, make sure to not keep them waiting beyond 30 seconds and be quick when addressing the urgent matter that you promised to respond to while you keep the other person on the line waiting.

(iii) Leaving Voice Messages or Voice Mails.

The voice message or voice mail option is available for most business phone systems, which enables one to leave a message to someone informing them of what you are up to such that you are not available to answer the call. Hence, it informs the caller instead of trying to guess why the call is not being responded by the person on the other hand. This is especially useful in a business setting wherein people you are communicating with lead a hectic schedule such that they cannot waste even a few minutes trying to connect to you via telephone call.

If you leave a voice mail message though, keep it straight to the point and brief. Make sure you speak the words clearly for the person on the other line to understand the message clearly. If you have a playback feature when recording your voice mail, you can play it again to see for yourself whether it is clear enough. Any business professional will appreciate getting a return message to let them know you cannot respond within the time needed.

The above techniques shall be useful for you, as a home-based business owner, to deal with your valuable business partners over the phone properly. These techniques, though simple, but are critical for your home-based business success and will affect your business performance as well as your money-earning potential significantly from time to time.