When you ask someone who they are (true, in this example permission is being asked, but right now, we’ll treat it as if the question being asked is “Who are you?”) you are not asking for their name. You are asking for them to identify themself. Their name is an identification–but only for those who know them. If they’re calling someone who doesn’t know them (which in this case, they are) then they need to tell more than just their name to identify themself. In fact, as others have pointed out, their name isn’t even always necessary for that.
I have to utterly agree. I’ve done reception work as temp work, and also just as part of being part of a company taking my turn on the phone for oh, somewhere around 25 years now. I would absolutely NEVER assume that my question of “May I ask who is calling” is supposed to convey to the caller that he also tell me the purpose of his call.
As a receptioniist I would always “do the work for” for the caller by asking something along the lines of " may I tell him/her who is calling and the purpose of your call"?
“May I know who’s calling?” appears to be insufficiently transparent for many Chinese callers here. So you try “Who’s calling, please?”, which ostensibly they can’t decode either. So then “What’s your name?”.
As you may have guessed, this has more to do with culture (a culture of secrecy/what’s-it-got-to-do-with-you mentality) than with failure to comprehend.
A friend had a priceless interaction with a fellow who rang him and asked, in very passable English, to speak with someone who’s staying with them for a while. Friend’s several “may I know who’s calling?”/“Who are you?” were all met with a simple reiteration of the person he wanted to speak to’s name.
But you get a lot of that type of thing here, whether you speak Cantonese or no.
Yes, thank you for answering that question. This is getting very interesting, because I had all along assumed that people who answer “John” to the question, “Who’s calling, please?” were generally just people who are a little slow on the uptake and just didn’t realize that if they’re a total stranger to my boss, that their name isn’t really going to do any good. I had no idea that it’s actually a point of pride with some people.
I really don’t get the reasoning, though. O.K., you call me, and - yeah! you beat the system and didn’t say why you’re calling. So you don’t get to talk to my boss. You get to leave a message with me, and you might get a call back tomorrow from my boss. How did you come out ahead on that?
Exactly. It’s VERY standard. I can’t think of anyone who says, “What is this regarding?” before they say, “May I ask who is calling?” “May I ask who’s calling?” is just what you say, like “May I help you?” is what you say if you work retail. I’ve been answering phones in one capacity or another for at least 20 years. I’m actually wondering if the people who say they’ve never heard of this are not from the United States.
Hmmm…I think you missed a couple posts. I don’t need the information. I am working within the parameters of my job to simply announce you to my boss as “John” if that’s the information you gave me. Honestly, it’s no skin off my nose if you get to talk to the boss or not. I’m just surprised that some people can’t put 2 and 2 together and figure out that a name of someone my boss has never heard of, isn’t going to do any good. See, we don’t know that this is the first time you’ve called, but you DO know that. Most of the time, it’s a client calling, my boss recognizes the name, and he takes the call - bada boom, bada bing. But if it’s some random name he’s never heard before, he’s not gonna take the call. I’m just trying to explain how businesses work. And again, the answer to the question, “Who is calling?” does not have to be your NAME. See my previous post.
Apparently some of you who answer the phone for a living know and understand that when you say “May I ask who’s calling?” it really means “Why are you calling?”
Please let me help you with some potentially valuable info: a lot of us who don’t answer the phone for a living, or spend all day calling executives, don’t know about this secret code. And the vast majority of that group don’t read this message board and aren’t going to know. If you want to expedite the phone-answering process, it’s not going to happen by ranting about the stupidity of people who don’t know that when you say “A” you mean “B.” It’s going to happen by changing your spiel so as to elicit the desired information.
In other words, if what you’re doing doesn’t work, try something else. You don’t have the ability to change the awareness of huge chunks of the population. You do have the ability to change what you’re doing.
She hears you, understands you, recognises your voice, but she doesn’t like your smart approach, trying to take charge. She gets told off and pushed around by the lawyers and their clients, and there’s one area where she’s boss: phone calls from supplicants. Non?
Yes. I think that’s the crux of the matter. There WAS a time in the U.S. when people exercised a certain kind of courtesy in making business calls. There were conventions that everyone understood. I too was taught that it is polite to identify yourself as Mr. X from Y company. It wouldn’t even occur to me to approach a total stranger in a business situation without identifying myself (completely, not just my first name). I suppose that’s the whole problem: many people apparently are not aware of business etiquette anymore.
As Gary T very eloquently pointed out, not everyone calling is OF the business world and cognizant of these rules. I wouldn’t consider calling someone without identifying myself by both name and company affiliation either. But when I answer the phone, it is no more energy or skin off of my teeth to make it idiot proof for the caller. Sure makes it much easier for me, gets the caller off the phone, and ME back to posting on the Dope, much more quickly.
And again, as Gary T nicely pointed out, if what you’re currently doing isn’t working, no amount of annoyance at the facts is going to change THEM. In order to get what you want, that is expidited incoming calls, all you have to do is only slightly change your information seeking phrase.
Some people have a sufficiently, if misdirected, regard for their own importance and fame that they will routinely not even bother with a name at all. Others who know that the receiver won’t easily be able to know who they are will routinely say “It’s Lisa”, in the knowledge that the other person will be incommoded. A power trip thing. Maybe they transfer this to the business field, especially when dealing with people they don’t rate very highly.
That’s hilarious. She isn’t blonde by any chance, is she?
Well if you say where you’re from, then you’re not just saying “This is John”. Do you understand the point we made that if you are a first time caller, that simply giving your name imparts absolutely no useful information? If you say you’re from Important Place #1, then it seems you DO understand that it makes sense to give more than just your first name.
But you WEREN’T asked for your name, you were asked “who is calling”. Again, the answer to that question does not have to be your name. Again, if I wanted to know your name, I would say, “May I have your name, please?”
Well, I don’t recall ever saying I was “miffed”. In fact, I said several times that it’s no skin off my nose if you don’t get to talk to my boss. So rather than being miffed, I’m actually indifferent to it. “Surprised” would be a better description. As far as it being customary to say, “May I ask who is calling?”, we’ve been in the biz a lot longer than you have, so you’re gonna have to take our word for it.
Why should I be inclined to interrogate you if you want to make it a point of pride not to say why you’re calling? I’m offering a suggestion here that’s going to increase your chances of talking to the person you’re trying to reach. You can take it or leave it. My job only requires me to announce you to my boss. If you want to be coy about it, you can just leave a message. We don’t have time to waste on obstinate callers.
So to sum up - I have absolutely no problem asking for more information if I need it. The thing is, I don’t need it. You are the one who wants to talk to my boss. He’d just as soon call you back tomorrow than be inturrupted today. So if you want to talk to him now, you’re helping yourself by volunteering a very tiny amount of information. If you don’t care, then just give your name.
That’s what the hold button is for.
Hey, where’s the evil smilie?
Ugh. :rolleyes: O.K., this is my last post tonight. For the last time, I never said what I’m doing isn’t working. It works 90% of the time. There just seem to be a few people who don’t know the convention, and also don’t seem to have any common sense either (or are being deliberately obstinate). I’m only talking about those people. I’ve said many times now that I have no problem asking for more information if I need it. I don’t NEED to change anything. And I already explained why changing the question to your wording is unsatisfactory, so no, that’s not a good solution. These people are only hurting themselves. They’re not getting to talk to the person they’re trying to call. Most people get it. Only a few don’t.
No need to get yourself all annoyed. People post from different time zones, and may have been posting their reply to you and posted it BEFORE you replied to someone else, hence not seeing your reply yet. So if you see more than one poster saying the same thing, it’s not that they’re all “ganging up on you” or something, it’s just how the timing of posts sometimes work out.
I don’t think anyone here thinks that you’re frothing at the mouth about it or anything, but it obviously bothers you enough to post a little “mini-rant” about it.
So in that since what you’re currently doing isn’t “working” so to speak. Why even worry about what they “get” or don’t get, or even what they may be doing deliberately. As all of us who’ve answered phones for a living know, that’s just the way some callers are.
Secondly, it’s obvious from some of the other posts here, that there are at least two schools of thought here regarding the “correct” and supposed to be “universally understood” meaning of the phrase “may I ask who is calling”.
So some take it literally, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t “get it” or that they’re trying to hurt themselves. Nor is it necessarily impolite or technologically challenged on their part.
In the most “meh”, relaxed, take it or leave it way, posters here are only saying that really, it’s not that unusual or “clueless” on the parts of callers who only give their name and perhaps wait for the next part of the call, that of the receptionist asking them the purpose of their call. They’re not trying to make you change your ways if you don’t want to, merely trying to be helpful with what seemed to be an annoyance to you.
No biggie.
OK for those of you who didn’t know, now you do. When someone says “May I ask who’s calling” they’re politely saying “identify yourself!” That’s what gatekeepers do. “John” - of course - is not going to get you through the gates unless the gatekeeper knows you already.
I don’t have a problem with people not knowing that - I’m pretty retarded in most social situations too. And the follow up “John who?” is easy enough (or in politese “May I ask what this is regarding?” “Can I tell him your last name?” “Does he know what this is about?”, etc.) I just read the OP as expressing understandable surprise that *so many * people are retarded that way.
I blame the annoyed reaction by posters here on the customer service industry. They’ve scripted everything down to the lowest common denominator so that they can handle everybody - including people who could otherwise barely function in society. People are so used to not having to use their head when they get some anonymous staffer on the phone that they think a completely literal thoughtless reaction is normal and healthy. (“Why should I have to think?”) They’re just used to dealing with scripts and computers more than people. Oh well. We just have to accept that gone are the days when people were trained in social conventions and personal interaction.
You know? Something just occurred to me. Sometimes receptionists and people’s phone voices can sound remarkably alike. One of my coworkers and I are always getting confused for each other over the phone.
Thinking about it, I HAVE actually been guilty of answering just “Shoes” to someone’s request of “whom may I say is calling” thinking that I’ve reached “Mary” the receptionist of Very Important Place #2 whose boss I call all the time.
Since in these cases Mary does know very well who Shoes is, right down to likely what I am calling about, and the person wth whom I need to speak, I have sometimes made that mistake. Only then to discover that Mary is sick, and this is “Francine” from the temp agency who doesn’t have a clue.
And then of course once I discover that it’s not really Mary, I fill her in on all of the details.
So that may be sometimes what is happening too, people so well known at the company including the receptionist, that they are not in the habit of doing the normal “I’m Shoes from X” thing.
My experience is that there are a couple situations:
Not the First Call
For me this is the bulk of my calls in my business lifetime.
In this case, name, sometimes with company is not only more than adequate, the people I call that ask that question don’t actually want to know any more than that because it would slow them down and bore them to tears.
First Call
For me this is by far the smaller percent of my calls that I make.
In this case it could go either way and I try to gauge the situation based on the type of phone call I am making.
Here are 2 perfect examples:
When I went through my divorce, I called my lawyer quite often, the only thing they wanted to know was who was calling, if I had tried to explain why I was calling I would have been talking while the lady was busy transferring my call.
When I call my stock broker, name is the only thing required. The only time they ask for more info is when they tell me she is busy and want to know if one of the junior’s can do something for me.
The admin/gatekeep concept of this comes from the fact that most of us have learned that anyone calling with a legitimate business purpose identifies themselves up front. People always drag up the “it could be his doctor!” thing. My old boss had enough medical problems to sink a boat, and I never got anything other than, “Hi, this is Cindy from Dr. Peterson’s office calling for Mr. VP.” Clients, lawyers, friends, whatever, they always said who they were.
This is especially true with EAs at higher levels. The kind of client who’d be worth the attention of a corporate SVP or CXO doesn’t make unsolicited calls through the receptionist, so that’s off the table. My boss is a talker, and sometimes the most important thing I can do for him all day is to keep him off the phone. it’s not my job to help you, and as others have said, being coy with me will only get voicemail (which, btw, I’m the one that checks. It’s as good as the rotary file)
I’d be happy if I could just get people to tell me their first AND last name without two separate questions, and without 10% of them giving me a hard time when I ask for their last name, so that I have to point out that their Big Name Attorney/ Doctor/ Whoever probably knows more than one John, Michelle, Tina, etc. (Oddly enough, the people with less common names never pull this one on me.)
When people tell me their name AND what company they’re with or what it’s about in one fell swoop, I just about cry with happiness.
And for the record, the “I’m a close personal friend of X” doesn’t work on me. First, if you WERE someone close to them, you could’ve called them at home. Second, EVERY TIME I’ve called one of our clients and said “Hi, so and so called and says she’s a friend of yours” I get a variation of “Who?” or “Yeah, right! Whatever, take a message.”
Corr
I used to deal in merchant sales for a very large credit card company. Even when I cold called companies (which was rare… they were also usually very large), I always said, “This is Joe Schmo [sic] with [company]”.
I wouldn’t expect to get through to the bigwig on the first call… or second (3 days later) or the third (3 weeks) later. But I would hope and expect that the secretary got the message through anyway.
If I had failed to give my name, company, and phone number, how the hell could anybody even believe I was legit? Much less hoping the “target” might actually want to call you back, and maybe needs to know your name, company, and phone number.
Seems to me anybody not willing to give all their information to the secretary or executive assistant probably isn’t on the level anyway.
“I won’t even give you my full name, but I must speak to your boss”
“Well, I get paid to keep people like you from bothering my boss”
Furthermore, I always made it a point to be especially nice to the “gate keeper”, and sometimes I’d even begin to give my spiel to them first, if they acted like they wanted more specifics, knowing full well they couldn’t make the final decision.
The pleasantry with a secretary can really mean real money from a salesman’s point of view.
I also gave premiums to the secretarys of our clients… I might have had a few keychains, stress balls, sunglasses, slinkies etc left over from the last trade show… I tried to give most of them to cool secretaries around the offices.