______ Library, how may I help you?
My name is _____ _______ and I lost my book, or I think I lost it, but I don't really know, and it might be in my cottage in North Bay which is several hours away, and my daughter might be able to get it in a week or two, but I don't know. What do I do?
Okay, let me take a look at your account. Can I get your name again?
*Patron now thinks I am an idiot because they already told me their name, and proceeds to spell their name which is something like "Mary Smith"*
Situations like this happen to me several times a week, and there are a few simple ways to change this - but it seems like learning phone etiquette is a thing of the past...or never occurred at all. So, I would like to share a few tips on how to conduct yourself over the phone with a business or organization. Now, organizations have different ways of doing things based on how their computer system works, but this is a generally good guide.
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What to do before making a call:
1) Know what has happened (even if you don't know why)
2) Know what you want to achieve
3) Have your client card/number present
Tips when speaking:
1) Say hello.
You don't need to ask how the person you are calling is, it's okay. You are welcome to (politeness is definitely not a bad thing), but please also keep this relatively brief - often staff are minding phones as well as other things, and drawing out a phone call for a long time over pleasantries can be a bit frustrating. However, please never EVER just launch into what your problem is without even saying hello - it is just plain rude, and people are less likely to do you a favour.
2) First state in a single clear and concise statement what the problem is.
This is not the moment to give the entire backstory of what has occurred. Often people will have launched into their full problem in complete detail...only to be told that they need to be transferred to another location or person. Some businesses have people to answer the phones simply to route the calls to the correct place and answer simple questions (ex. hours of operation, nearest location, etc.), while others have fully trained staff answering the phones and taking care of other things (or somewhere in the middle). Since you likely won't know the capabilities of the person on the other end, the best thing that you can do is to simply inform the person what you need/the problem, so that they can determine what tools will be needed to help you - whether that is opening the correct computer module, or transferring the call.
