Is there a contest? I don’t know how many times I have had to call back and say “This is <my name>-someone left me a message and I didn’t get their name and I THINK they need me to call for Mr. (Ms.) incomprehensive name.” Honestly, I get voice mails that go like "thisis~callingfor<me>andMr.~wouldlikeyoutocallbackat7957403755about
I think you mean “incomprehensible” voicemails, right?
As for getting people to speak slowly and clearly, you can only do it if you make it clear to the caller that they will not get what they want from you unless you understand the message. So YOUR message has to be very clear.
I don’t know if this will work for you or not, but I’ve had good results with it. In my voicemail message, I say, “If this is a business call or if I don’t know you, and you want a callback, please tell me clearly who you are and why you are calling. Then repeat your phone number slowly, twice.”
Of course, YOU have to speak this message very clearly, too. Crank callers won’t bother, so that eliminates them right off the bat. I can’t just ignore voicemails because my mother is in assisted living, and I get calls from physical therapists and nurses from their cell phones–and these are unfamiliar numbers.
Ugh, yes, incomprehensible-teach me to post so early.
I guess I can rework my outgoing-it’s already pretty long, but thanks, that may help
When I take messages or have to write something down that someone is saying to me over the phone, I can’t tell you how often I have to stop them and make them start over. I feel like a jerk, but what are you gonna do. For example, I’ll ask for their name and they’ll say “It’s Katherine Masuczukski that’s M-a-s-u…” and I’m saying ‘hold on, I’m…stop, hold…’ and I have to let them get through the whole thing so I can say “I’m still writing Katherine, is that with a C or a K, okay, how do you spell the last name?”
Same thing when they rattle of a list of things, they’ll say all 15 items and I’m on the second one.
I think I got it from here, but when I leave a message for someone I always put my phone number as close to the beginning of the message as possible ie “Hi this is Joey from [work] my number is…”. That way they can listen to the message as many times as they need to and not have to sit through a 45 second message to get my number from it.
Of course, with caller ID, most people call back before even listening to it.
That’s an excellent idea. I’ve done that, and sometimes I say, “This is my phone number, and I’m going to repeat it again at the end,” in case they have to get a pencil.
My first real job was working for a telephone answering service (ca. 1964). This was before voicemail and caller i.d. I had a switchboard with about 80 businesses on it, and I answered for them when they were out of the office. We were taught to take messages by a drill sergeant-type instructor, and we did not dare get a message wrong. If a customer called her and said, “ThelmaLou lost me some business because she screwed up a call–” not good.
Our boss would listen in and critique us if we didn’t ask the caller to spell his/her name slowly and then repeat the name back to them. We also had to REPEAT back the phone number they gave us. We did not let the caller rush us. Yikes, that woman scared me! The stuff you learn at a formative age sticks with you. To this day, I take an excellent phone message. I’m afraid her ghost will come back to haunt me.
Incomprehensible voice mails run through voice-to-text are a special treat.
That’s a big one, in general, in customer service and it’s hard to learn. Don’t let the customer rush you. No one wants to tell a customer that something went wrong because they [the customer] refused to spell something or got annoyed when you asked them to repeat something you didn’t understand, but we’ve all been there.
And have the scars to prove it, brother.
I just hang up and hope that the other person notices and calls back.
I feel like I should get a medal for never saying “If you’re going to ask me to repeat every, turn off The Price Is Right and I’m guessing even your neighbors can’t hear themselves think”.
My surname is fairly simple but not an English word, so I’m often asked to spell it. Invariably it takes at least three spellings for others to get it right.
I have frequent occasion to spell it when talking to airplane pilots. So I often spell my name using the “radio alphabet”: Sierra Echo November Echo Golf Oscar India Delta. They ought to get that the first time.
Without exception, they interrupt me by the fourth letter saying “Don’t give me this Sierra Echo radio alphabet shit. Just spell it!”
It still takes me three repeats for them to get it right.
Why is your outgoing already pretty long?
IME with modern VM systems, the computer will already explain everything. My entire outgoing message is “Hi, this is LSLGuy.” With no big pause at the end while I breathe and struggle to remember which button to push to end the recording. I don’t leave much over a millisecond between the end of my name and the end of the recording.
After that succinct message is played the stupid computer will tell them to press 5 for a callback number or to speak their message and to press # at the end for more options or to press 4 to bray at the moon and all that other crap I can’t turn off.
I’m going to suggest that most callers (or more likely, their pointy-haired bosses) have (stupidly) developed a budget for how long they’ve willing to spend on the phone with your computer. Every second they’re listening to you or it prattle on is another second they’ll have to shave off the message they leave. How do they shave? By talking faster, saying the same canned phrase they say over and over all day long into VMs:
Hithisissuzyfromdoctorbumblefucksofficepleasecallusat3456786543toconfirmyourappointmentontuethe17that9amthanksbye.
The less time you waste, the more time they’ll give you.
Aside: we were never allowed to say the words, “I don’t know” to a caller. We could say, “He (the client) did not give me that information,” “He didn’t tell me,” “I don’t have that information,” and many other variations, but the words I. DON’T. KNOW. were never allowed to pass our lips. If the boss heard us say that, we’d get a note in the drawer where we kept our headsets. Notes were not a good thing. I felt like a prisoner of war at that job. But I learned a lot. BTW, the owner of the company committed suicide a few years after I worked there. No idea of the reason. /Aside
Sure, it was ruled a suicide, but you hated him, right? Stealth brag?
Oooooo…ouch. It was a woman, and no, not a brag of any kind. I was only a teenager when I worked there. This was the owner anyway, not my immediate [del]drill sergeant[/del] supervisor.
My outgoing is long because I am a landlord, and the tenants call and say “Call me back.” So I don’t know if the damn house is on fire or their toilet is clogged. My message says that if you are a tenant, please leave a detailed message so that I can start working on the issue immediately and not waste time calling for details." Yeah, I guess I could add the speak slowly etc. I just feel bad for banks and dentists etc. having to wade thru that.
Hey, is there a # they can push to bypass the message–hmmmm, just thought of that.
Oooooooh. Essential information about why your messages are so important. Okay.
The # sign to bypass message is important for non-tenant callers.
I’d be tempted to say, “If you are a tenant and want a callback, tell me why you are calling. Otherwise it mighe be several days before I can return your call.”
The phrase “detailed message” might be too much for people to grasp. I like the straightforwardness of “TELL ME WHY.”
Being a landlord is very difficult. I was one on a couple of occasions. My hat if off to you.
Yes, this.
Modern people will not do what you ask just because you ask it. They will do what they perceive is advantageous to them. This happens almost completely subconsciously.
So to get the behavior you want, you must couch it what amounts to: “You will directly benefit if you do it this way: …”
The obvious risk for a landlord is many tenants’ POV is “I really don’t care much that the landlord’s plumbing is leaking. He’s the one getting the damage and getting the water bill. I’ll call him and leave no details, but if he wants to assume my call isn’t important, ignore it for a week, and thereby wreck his building, that’s his problem not mine. I did my minimum duty; screw him.”
People! Jeez, how the hell did we get to be such a self-centered mass of passive aggressive non-cooperators?
As one of my college chums used to say: “humanity is god’s idea of a practical joke.” ISTM the joke’s getting old and the big meteor is coming. But not soon enough.
Wait, LSL, which “yes, this” ?
ThelmaLou’s assertion to tell the caller why to leave details.
Sorry to confuse. On re-read I see I wasn’t as clear as I thought I was. :smack: