Gotta Know Online

Telephone etiquette isn't just for your grandparents' generation.

We all use the telephone. We use it for work and in our personal lives. Whether you are using a land line or cell phone, basic telephone etiquette should always be used. Proper telephone etiquette makes you and your employer sound professional.

Telephone Etiquette When Answering a Call

Personal Telephone:

“Hello.”

That’s all you need to say. Just “hello” and then wait for the caller to speak. It is no longer proper telephone etiquette to announce your name when someone calls your home telephone. Announcing your name can actually be dangerous. You should never volunteer information over the phone until you are certain of who the caller is.

Business Telephone: If you are the receptionist, you should say:

“Good morning/afternoon, XXX Company. How may I direct your call?”

If you have a direct line, answer:

“This is (your name)”

This lets the caller knows he has reached the correct person. If you don’t use this piece of telephone etiquette, you could be looking at an exchange like this:

You: “Hello.”
Caller: “Hello?”
You: “Who is this?”
Caller: “Who is THIS?”

Telephone Etiquette When Placing a Call

After the other person answers, tell them who you are! This is the single most important bit of telephone etiquette. Do not assume the other person can tell who you are by the sound of your voice. People often sound different on the telephone than they do in person.

Which reminds me of another telephone etiquette topic. Say, “May I speak with…?” This is the most polite way to ask for someone.  Here’s an example of this bit of telephone etiquette:

Carl: Hello.
Kristy: This is Kristy. May I speak with Carl?
Carl: This is Carl.

Here’s a serious breach of telephone etiquette. Unless it’s an emergency, if you call someone and they do not answer, do not just keep calling them until they answer.  You don’t know what that person is doing. They might be in the middle of something important and they don’t need you pestering them with a ringing phone.  Leave a message on the answering machine or voice mail instead.

Telephone Etiquette for Cell Phones

I think a lot of human-to-human interaction is placed second to cell phone use.  For the most part, I have a hate/hate relationship with cell phones.  However, I realize they do have a place in our society.  I’ll admit I even have one, though I hardly use it.

Here are my tips for telephone etiquette when it comes to cell phones.

• If you are in the middle of a conversation with someone who is physically present, do not interrupt the conversation to take a non-emergency cell phone call. This is a signal to the person that they are less important to you than the caller. Is this the message you want to send?

• Use your voice mail feature. If you are in the middle of checking out at the grocery store, bump the call and let it go to voice mail. You can then check the voice mail as soon as you are done and decide if the call needs to be returned.

• Do not talk on your cell phone when you are being waited on. The cashier, and the people in line behind you waiting to order their Whoppers, will not appreciate this.

• Do not carry on loud cell phone conversations in public places. Most people don’t want to know the intimate details of your life.

• Do not talk on your cell phone during a movie. We’ve all heard that one. However, you should refrain from opening your cell phone in the theater, period. Why? Because I recently had a movie ruined when I temporarily went blind from cell phone light. Thank you, boys sitting next to me. You guys owe me some movie tickets and reimbursement for retina replacement surgery. You will live if you don’t check your text messages for one and a half hours. I promise.

Everyone should know and abide by these basic rules of telephone etiquette.  You will save time and appear professional by following these telphone etiquette tips.  After all, you want to use your best telephone etiquette if the person on the other end happens to be calling to ask you to come in to a job interview.