I work for a largish Plumbing/HazMat company. I love my job. I have 15 lines to answer, which is small compared to some large corporations.
Most of these are guidelines when calling a company where a Receptionist Answers. Some are for co-workers. Feel free to add your own.
[ul]
[li]Do know for whom you are calling. I reaaaaally don’t want to hear “Uh…um…uh…Is uh, who is the guy who arranges for a waste pick ups?”[/li]
[li]Do Not put the line on hold before I pick up. I do not have time to wait for you with 4 other lines ringing.[/li]
[li]Do Not get mad at me because it is against policy to give out the cell phone numbers of the Salesmen or Owner. Saying “Oh but he gave it to me last week and I misplaced it” is only going to make me repeat myself in saying that it is against policy to give them out. I will gladly call them for you. If you are a family member and it is an emergency I’ll make an exception.[/li]
[li]Do Not just hang up on me if you’ve got a wrong number. Just a quick “Oops, wrong number” will suffice.[/li]
[li]Do Not call and say “Uh yea, this number was on my phone, someone from there just called me?” There are over 100 employees here. All but 6 are men. I really have no idea who called you.[/li]
[li]Do LISTEN to the company name when I answer the phone. No, we are not Dr. Smith’s office. No, I don’t have the results of your urinalysis.[/li]
[li]Do believe me when I say someone is in a meeting or out of the office. I don’t lie. If I suggest you take the person’s voice mail, take it and leave a message. Most salespeople have cell phones that notify them they have a voicemail message waiting.[/li]
Employees of companies that have Receptionist.
[li]Do Not give me something at 4:20 when I leave at 4:30 to be picked up by a Courier Company. Sure I can call, but I guarantee they can’t pick it up until the following day.[/li]
[li] Do Not expect me to be happy when your wife/mother/brother/sister call 20 times a day.[/li]
[li] Do remember Secretary’s Day.[/li]
[li] Do remember what your Mama taught you. Please and Thank You goes a LONG way.[/li][/ul]
We have wonderful receptionists here at work, but on occassion, they will transfer someone to me with a question that I cannot answer, mostly because it’s the wrong department. Then I have to transfer that poor person to someone else.
Please, make sure you know what dept are responsible for what at your company.
(Receptionists take a lot of crap, and at least here, they are always smiling.)
I have a possible explanation for the first one. Many times if I’m calling somebody and I’m on hold for awhile, my mind starts to drift. Then, when a real person picks up it startles me from my daydream/doodling/mindless task and I go into a whole “Shit what or who in the hell was I calling for?!” kind of thing.
A word of advice for folks calling customer service:
Your account number does not start with “seventeen”. It’s “one-seven”. (And if for some reason you feel compelled to say it the first way, at least don’t pronounce it as “seven … teen”.) It also doesn’t contain “twenty, six”. It’s either “two-oh-six” or “two-six”, and I can’t tell which unless you tell me.
Also, all of Lady Venom’s rules apply, especially “Do Not put the line on hold before I pick up.” Unless you want to wait through the thirty-minute-long call queue twice.
A good receptionist is worth her weight in gold, at the least. I have a friend who I think is the best receptionist in the whole world, although I’ll certainly give you a shot at the title, Lady Venom. May the patron saint of receptionists smile upon you as your words of wisdom filter out through the ether to all the Great Unwashed who really need to hear them.
I used to have to fill in for my friend at the Switchboard from Hell while she ran quick errands. Trust me, I will never be competing with you for the job. But it certainly showed me that even what my Mama taught me sometimes isn’t enough, that I have to be specially kind to you Guardians of the Switchboard. 'Cause there ain’t enough money in the world to pay you to do that job as long as it means I don’t have to!
My absolute favorite thing is when we get a wrong-number call, and the caller expects me to automatically know the phone number of the place they were actually trying to call. It’s even better when, after having been told that, no, I do not know how to reach Price Chopper, Dr. Smith’s podiatry office, or Mistress Dominique’s House of Pleasure, the caller asks me to look up the number for them. Call information or get your own damn phonebook! Grr. Argh.
And may I just add, the phrase “I don’t know if I’m calling the right department” is very close to the single most useless phrase in the English language. You know how you find out if you’re calling the right department? You ask your damn question! If you have the wrong department, we’re all more than happy to transfer you.
When I ask “What sort of trouble are you having?”… the answer is NOT “duh… I dunno”
always remember that trouble with your account MAY POSSIBLY be user error. I will admit that we (the company I work for) MAY BE wrong… but please be open to the fact that you may be wrong also… and when I show you what went wrong, and how you can fix it, please do not accuse me of reprogramming the entire product just to trip you up. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. YOU HAVEALWAYS NEEDED TO PUT THE DASHES IN YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!
common courstesy is a DEFINITE do
Oh… this bank does not have any branches outside the U.S. Southeast… do NOT be mad at me because I do not speak Korean, or Chinese, or Japanese, or German, or French, or Spanish. When I call a bank in your homeland, I will return the favor.
I could do without the hemming and hawing, but if I need to talk the person who arranges waste pick-ups for your company and I don’t know who that person is, my most expedient method of finding that person is to call you and ask for that person by job function. It is part of a receptionist’s job to know where to direct inquiries. Any decent company phone list will tell you to whom to send calls on various subjects, such as accounts payable, tax matters, engineering, investor relations, etc.
That being said, I’ve watched the receptionists at a company for whom I worked that was about the same size, and it seemed quite hectic.
[ul]
[li]When the fax machine jams, don’t look at me and ask me how to clear the paper out. [/li][li]When I am on the phone, don’t come bursting into my room screaming about how your daughter is going to be calling. I will not listen to you because I am ON THE PHONE! [/li][li]Please tell your kids not to call if their big brother is making fun of them. After the third time, I will not transfer you to your mom unless you are bleeding from the eyes.[/li][li]If you want to help me, ask me what you can do. If I say nothing, that means nothing.[/li][li]I do not know all of the phone numbers to every doctors office in the city. If it takes me a few minutes to find it, be patient, or look for it yourself.[/li][li]My computer is not the community computer. Don’t sit at it while I am at lunch, and mess around with it. I had those windows open for a reason. When you close them, it only makes more work for me. Play Tetris on the breakroom computer.[/li][/ul]
If I say “So & so is not available at the moment. May I take a message or would you like to leave a voice mail?” do not reply, “I’ll hold.” I didn’t give you that option.
We literally have millions of customers and I haven’t quite learned to recognize all of you by name just yet. You were given a reference number when you signed up with us. Please have that available when you call in as that’s the quickest way for us to look up your account and help you (and also keeps me from having to ask for your social security number as an alternate lookup ID). Yes, I can look up your account by name, Mr. Smith, but it might take awhile. Remember too that just because your company’s database is searchable by address doesn’t mean mine is, but thanks for suggesting that our IT department create a new database. Please hold while I call down to them and arrange it.
If I ask what your call is in regards to, do not say something obvious like, “It’s about my account.” The more specific you are about your needs, the less likely you will be tossed from department to department.
Having sat on hold for lengthy periods of time myself, I am completely sympathetic to your plight. Please remember that we have millions of customers and they all seem to prefer calling us over their lunch hour – or at the top and bottom of every hour - or ten minutes before close. Please be patient. I assure you we have more than five people hired to answer your questions.
Yes, I realize our phone system was designed by dead squirrels. I am currently planning a hostile takeover of the company after which I will install a better system. Until then, you’re stuck with what we have.
To my beloved co-workers:
When I transfer someone to you, I expect you to help them. This is your job, after all. I don’t want to hear that they’re not your client – in your department all reps are supposed to be able to help someone (unless the account is dedicated, of course). Do not ask me for detailed explanation of the client’s problem as if I have been extensively trained about our products as you have. I do not have time to listen to a highly detailed account of each client’s needs as I have scores of people calling in each day. I’ll give you the basic overview and if you want to know more, you’ll have to ask them. One last thing - if I can’t provide you with the account number, it’s because the client wouldn’t/couldn’t give it to me.
I am absolutely GIFTED at dialing the wrong number. And have quite a stock of “oops” lines. I have made more than one receptionist laugh…
On a related side note people when I tell you that my home is NOT a patent attorney’s office do NOT:
get belligerent and tell me “This was the number I was given”
Or
Ask me if I have the real attorney’s number.
The first one wil get a big slam in your ear and the second will inform you that that phone company puts out a pretty book with white and yellow pages in it that has all that info in it… you can find those books at the local library.
With regards to people being in meetings and/or out of office - I don’t know how long they’re going to be. They didn’t tell me. They never do. I was lucky to see them sprinting out the front door so I actually know they’re gone - see, they’re supposed to tell me or sign themselves out, but they just don’t, and I can’t make them.
As for leaving messages, we have a lovely voicemail system that works really well - there is no reason for you to keep transferring back to me so that I can print a message slip and go put it on his desk for him. I know you want that human touch, but too bad. That’s not the world we live in anymore. Go build a time machine and go back to the fifties if you need to have a “girl” doing menial errands for you to feel secure.
Once you’ve left a message, the onus is on the messagee to get back to you - I can’t make him return his calls. I can “accidentally” hang up on you when you call and yell at me because he doesn’t return his voicemails.
Gee, I sure miss being a receptionist. About as much as I miss that huge wart I had on my toe.
Amen! I work in a research, assessment, and evaluation department for a school district. Just because someone says they have a testing question does not mean I will know the answer to the question. There are other departments that handle testing (special education, giften and talented, diagnosticians, etc.). And if you don’t know the correct department for the call, don’t send me the call just because I’m in Research. I don’t research telephone numbers.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. That was a bad example. It’s usually people who have used us for years but have a Brain Fart of astronomic proportions and when I say John they say “John, that’s right, yea, John”. If you’ve never used us, then I don’t mind the question, but if you’ve been using our company for years, you might want to write down a contact name.
I work for a company in Toronto Canada and our toll free number is very close to Direct TV’s accounts receivable department, our is 877-857, theirs is 877 837.
So all the damn time, we get calls from irate Americans who’ve gotten their service cut off. When i try and correct them, they actually have the nerve to scream and yell at me about why they were given the wrong number…they’re just dialing the number on their bill. WELL! I’m SORRY that I can’t help you! And yea, I SOMEHOW put MY number on YOUR bill just to cause YOU grief. All your fave soaps will just have to go on without you…
Years ago, I worked for an electronics store, and would answer the phone 'Hello, XYZ Electronics, how may I help you?"
A chain restaurant opened up in another county, and the transposed digits caused their asshat customers to constantly call us, and even after having heard the above intro ask if this was “Snake & Choke Station.”
After weeks of this nonsense, I started taking reservations and offering specials, such that the Grimsby party of 10 who expected surf and turf for $6.50 was outta luck.
When giving your service address to the Winston-Salem, NC, water department, it is usually not necessary to specify that the address is in North Carolina.
I don’t know why the supervisor isn’t answering her phone right now. Probably she’s just sitting there doing nothing, watching the phone ring, because she knows it annoys you.
And, (somewhat off-topic,) maybe someone can explain why I have the following conversation about fifty times a day:
c_carol: Do you know your account number?
caller: No, I don’t have it with me, I’m at work.
