Phone etiquette is an essential skill for sales professionals, as it can make or break your relationship with prospects and customers. But how do you ensure that your team follows the best practices of phone communication, such as being polite, clear, concise, and respectful? Here are some tips on how to share phone etiquette best practices with your team.
Before you can share phone etiquette best practices with your team, you need to know where they stand. You can do this by conducting a phone skills audit, where you listen to recorded calls, observe live calls, or ask for feedback from customers. Look for areas of improvement, such as tone, pace, volume, listening, questioning, and closing. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of each team member, and provide constructive feedback and coaching.
Assessing your team's phone skills will help you to manage your time efficiently by enabling you to tailor your contents specifically to fill the gap in communication and technicalities of it. Knowing first, offering solutions come next.
Sharing phone etiquette best practices with your team is crucial for maintaining a professional and positive customer service experience. Here's a simple guide on how to do it effectively: Schedule a Team Meeting: Set up a team meeting to discuss phone etiquette. This can be done in person, over a virtual platform, or through other communication channels. Start with a Positive Tone: Begin the discussion on a positive note, emphasizing the importance of excellent customer service and effective communication. Highlight the Importance: Clearly articulate why phone etiquette is essential. Explain how it impacts customer satisfaction, the company's reputation, and overall team success. Provide Real-Life Examples:
We were required to be present at script practice at 8:30am. We practiced our scripts using each other to role play and practiced "objection handlers". After that, we hit the phones. We kept track of our metrics and based on the amount of dials made, compared to the number of conversations had and appointments we managed to set all measured where our phone skills were at. Our team leader held a weekly one-on-one meeting with each team member and that is how our team leader was able to point out a potential skill set problem with a team members phone skills. The team member would often begin to ask for help with phone skills before it was discovered by our leader. Our team leader was more than willing to provide additional training.
A phone etiquette guide is a document that outlines the dos and don'ts of phone communication for your team. It should include the best practices for greeting, introducing, explaining, confirming, handling objections, resolving issues, and ending calls. It should also cover the common scenarios and challenges that your team may face on the phone, such as angry customers, gatekeepers, voicemail, and callbacks. A phone etiquette guide can serve as a reference and a training tool for your team.
Training your team on phone etiquette is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process. You can use various methods to train your team, such as role-playing, simulations, quizzes, games, videos, and podcasts. You can also invite guest speakers, such as phone etiquette experts, successful salespeople, or satisfied customers, to share their insights and tips. The goal of training is to help your team develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to communicate effectively on the phone.
To ensure that your team follows the phone etiquette best practices, you need to monitor and reward their phone performance. You can use metrics, such as call duration, conversion rate, customer satisfaction, and retention rate, to measure their phone performance. You can also use feedback, such as surveys, reviews, testimonials, and referrals, to assess their phone performance. Based on the results, you can recognize and reward your team for their achievements, or provide additional support and guidance for their challenges.
The best way to improve your team's phone etiquette is to encourage them to practice it regularly. You can do this by creating a culture of phone etiquette in your team, where you model the best practices, share the best examples, and solicit the best suggestions. You can also create a peer-to-peer learning environment, where your team members can learn from each other, exchange feedback, and mentor each other. By practicing phone etiquette consistently, your team can enhance their phone communication skills and boost their sales results.