In today’s world, client or customer satisfaction is the top most priority for every organization. Business calls are often the deciding factor whether you will be gaining or losing your customers. They also help create a first positive or negative impression on customers. Therefore, it’s essential for these calls to convey professionalism, respect, and the helpfulness of a company.
One of the most important aspects of phone etiquette with of business calls is to effectively manage and transfer it. Business calls are meant to provide valuable and accurate information. Moreover, they should be able to resolve any queries or concerns of clients or customers. Transferring a call effectively to the next agent within a workflow is critical. It needs to be done without disrupting the entire customer experience during the transfer process.
There are certain valuable tips on phone etiquette for companies and organizations that can be incorporated into their workflow. In this article, you will learn these 10 tips that make a difference.
10 Tips for Transferring Business Calls Effectively
1. Understand the purpose of the call.
You need to properly understand the objective of every business call. This should be your top priority. Ask yourself, “What are the queries, issues, concerns, and goals of the client or customer?” On the basis of this information, you will be able to understand whether you can answer those queries or not. At the same time, make sure you pay close attention and listen to their concerns as part of excellent customer service. This also enables you to analyze the information at hand and transfer the call to the concerned person in case you are not able to answer.
2. Never make customers or clients start over again.
When receiving a call from a customer or client and realizing that the call needs to be transferred to another department or person, never make the caller head back to the start of the call menu. Starting over and over again can customers be furious and frustrated. This also tends to create a bad impression of your organization in the eyes of the consumers. Make sure to have a proper system within the workflow which allows seamless transfer of calls to other co-workers or concerned departments.
3. Let callers have some control.
In the process of transferring a call, you need to put a customer on hold. Make sure to ask customers on the call on whether they’re okay with you passing on their concern to another person or department. This will help them like to feel they have some control. A simple message would be, “I’d like to transfer you to the Senior Manager if that’s okay. He’ll be able to answer your question.” Then, your customer will have the opportunity to respond with, “Sure, no problem!”
4. Remember to always transfer the caller details to your co-workers.
While transferring the business call, providing the caller details to the concerned person or co-worker is very important. Otherwise, clients or customers over the call need to repeat themselves and they hate doing that. Make a note down of all the issues or queries while attending the call. When you are about to transfer, notify all the important information about the caller to the concerned person.
5. Inform the customer about the call-transfer.
Part of phone etiquette is making sure to inform the caller about the transferring of the call to the concerned person. You should also provide some basic information to the caller about your co-worker who will be attending their call this time. Information can include the name, designation and department of your co-worker.
6. Check the availability of your team members.
Before you begin to transfer the call to the concerned department or team member, do cross check whether someone is able to attend the call or not. Make sure customers or clients are not being transferred to support teams who are not available. Moreover, you should never ever put callers on hold for a long period of time. While callers are on hold, immediately check on the availability of the concerned team member to whom you will be transferring the call.
7. Be polite and humble during the call transfer.
During the call-transfer, there will be situations when customers are a bit angry, aggressive, or in a hurry. You need to stay calm and polite during the entire transfer process. Moreover, handle such situations well and never lose your calm. You should also make the caller understand that you are trying to help them in the best possible way.
8. Thank your customers for holding on call.
Just before the co-worker or concerned person gets connected, thank the customer for patiently waiting and for their cooperation during the entire call transfer process. This polite phone etiquette gesture conveys that you respect the time and effort that the customer has invested in contacting and getting in touch with the organization.
9. Make sure that the process of transferring business calls is smooth.
Do keep a track of whether the call transfer process is done from your system and that all things are in place. There might be technical issues in some cases, but you should know how to troubleshoot these issues when they occur and connect customers or clients to the next available co-worker or agent immediately. Moreover, conduct a regular check of your information technology devices, phones, etc. to verify that all things are functioning properly.
10. Maintain professionalism.
During the phone interaction with clients or customers, you need to maintain professionalism. Some of the common reasons for ending a call include interacting with a customer who’s consuming too much of your time and diverting you to some other discussions rather than focusing on the main concern.
Another less common issue includes some callers using abusive, vulgar or threatening language during the call transfer. You should be aware of the organization’s policy and procedures on how to deal with such types of callers. Moreover, you can put the call on hold while you seek advice from senior professionals or the reporting manager on how to proceed in such cases.
Conclusion
The phone etiquette for transferring business calls is very important from a customer’s point of view on any organization. Not only that, but it helps with your business’ growth. Company employees or representatives need to show empathy and equal respect towards every call they receive on a regular basis throughout the year. Moreover, you can follow these valuable tips for transferring business calls effectively within your organization or company. Do your best to be polite and properly convey the entire transfer process to customers to set the right expectations.
Irfan Mehmeti is a tech blogger and digital marketer with 5 years of experience within the tech and digital marketing industry who writes for key tech publications around the world. He lives in the Republic of Kosovo and is certified for content marketing by Hubspot Academy.
Aside from tech and digital marketing, Irfan’s weekends are very sportive as he cheers for his favorite football club Chelsea FC and hoops basketball with colleagues!
