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Business Communication Platforms: Phone Calls, Voicemails, & Emails

Business Communication TipsCommunication plays a major role in your business, perhaps a bigger role than you have ever really noticed. Just think about it. EVERYTHING you do revolves around some sort of communication. The way you interact with your employees involves in-person conversation. The way you handle customer service or sales involves phone conversation and sometimes voicemail. The way you handle less urgent matters involves email conversation.

Each and every aspect of your business involves one of these Business Communication Platforms. And each platform is completely different, requiring a unique set of communication skills in order to effectively communicate your point.

Business Communication Platforms: Phone Calls, Voicemails, & Emails

We are going to skip in-person conversation. We touched on that topic last week in our blog Business Communication Tips: Understanding Your Behavioral Style. This week, we are going to focus on the other major platforms, phone calls, voicemails, and emails.

Phone Calls

  1. Preparation: First and foremost, do a little preparation. Outline what you want to cover in the phone call. This will help the conversation move more fluidly and will help you avoid those dreaded, awkward pauses.
  2. Greeting: Make sure your greeting is professional. Do not just jump into the purpose of the call. Introduce yourself and your company without sounding like a telemarketer.
  3. Courtesy: Is this a good time? Make sure your client or prospect has the time to talk. Do not just assume that they are eagerly awaiting your call and will drop everything else.
  4. Reason: Finally, get into the reason of your call.
  5. Gratitude: It is important to be polite and express gratitude.

Voicemails

Yes, voicemails and phone calls require a different set of communications skills.

  1. Brevity: Be brief. No one wants to listen to a long voicemail.
  2. Introduction: Introduce yourself and put your contact information up front.
  3. Purpose: Get to the purpose of your call.
  4. One Topic: Try to avoid leaving a message about numerous topics.
  5. Return Call: Before hanging up, give your client or prospect a good idea of when they should call back.

Emails

  1. Simplicity: Write the way you speak. Just because you are writing an email doesn’t mean you need to break out the thesaurus. Keep it simple and don’t overdo it.
  2. Subject Line: Make sure the subject is clearly defined in the subject line.
  3. Introductions: If you need to, make sure you identify yourself and your company clearly before getting into the meat and potatoes of your email.
  4. Focus: Keep your email focused and readable. Do not wander off on any tangents.
  5. Proof Read: Please proof read. Nothing looks less professional than an email riddled with spelling mistakes and poor grammar.

One last bit of advice. Never send an email when you are angry. That is the beauty of email. You can write it, save it, and review it when you have cooled off.

If you have any questions about Business Communication Tips please contact Advanced Communication Solutions by calling 1-800-750-3624 or visit BuyTelephoneSystem.com today! You can also follow Advanced Communication Systems on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.

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