Yes, and yes! I’m the de facto receptionist for our school, but it’s not like I don’t have a hundred other things going on at the same time, and I really don’t have time for chit-chat with everyone who calls. There are a few people who invariably say, after I answer the phone with the business name and my name, “Hello! How are you?” I’ve taken to just saying, “Fine. How may I help you?” so that we don’t get into a long exchange of pleasantries while I miss three other calls and ignore a person waiting at my desk.
We have 600 students. Even if we’re on your third child and you call all the damn time, I’m not going to just recognize your voice when I answer the phone. Hell, there have been a couple of times when my own husband called the school number and I didn’t recognize HIS voice at first!
I taught both of my children to always identify themselves when they didn’t recognize the person who answered the phone, and to never identify themselves if they didn’t know who was calling.
You know, maybe you don’t need to talk to the very top person. Perhaps a lowly secretary can help you rather than make you play phone tag. Maybe my boss is waiting for your phone call and has asked me to interrupt a meeting if you call. Maybe I have information specifically for you. I won’t know unless you tell me who you are.
In Colombia it’s still somewhat common, when I answer the land line, to be immediately asked to identify myself:
Me: Hello?
Unknown Caller: Who is this? (Quien habla?)
This is because the land lines would often connect you to the wrong line, even when you dialed correctly. (It’s not that common, now, but for some people it’s a still a habit, I guess.)
An annoyance when making a call is to have to answer a mess of questions before they connect you to whomever can actually help you, wherein you have to explain the same thing to the next person. (I think computer people are the worst - you can repeat the same info 5 times before someone will actually help.)
When I was driving, whenever I had to call someone, I’d try to start off with enough information for them to have a general idea who I was.
To a client: Hi, I’m Jeff. I’m a driver for company name and I’m calling about a time oclock pickup/delivery I’m scheduled for.
To my dispatcher: Hey, this is Jeff, in truck number XXXXX.
In either case, they’ve got enough information to punch up something for a reference to whatever I’m calling about.
The people of the world thank you. The truck drivers that deliver our supplies are good about this too. I always get a “Hey this is Chris from G Suppliers, I’ll be at your shop in 5 minutes and I’ll need some help unloading.” Wham bam and done, just the way I like my calls.
And yes, since we’re only 3 people large, customers think they are important enough to go straight to the owner, who still has better things to do. The other two of us here are not secretaries or receptionists but it’s still our job to intercept, and besides, since we aren’t receptionists we can tell you the answer 99% of the time. When a caller is particularly belligerent about being let through to the owner without giving details, sometimes I do it because I know the boss will listen to their whole spiel and say “Uh-huh, well, Macca can help you with that since she is the one handling your project” and they’re back on the line with me at square 1. And these are people who have come in and shaken hands with all of us and know that I’m the one heading up their project.
Also, our Caller ID usually just shows a bunch of garbage or outdated information. I don’t think Caller ID should be a substitute for names because, especially for landlines, it’s not always Robert Q calling but his wife Mia Q, daughter Leah Q, or their visitor Auntie G borrowing the phone.
When I worked at the city desk of the Daily Planet, only I had the power to judge whether an incoming call was important, and to leap tall buildings with a single bound. Might be the scoop of the year, coming in from Rain Man, for all the switchboard knows. Everybody gets through – important calls are impossible for the receptionist to discern, and no matter what business I was in, I’d never assign that power to somebody else. Trust me, if the person calling was really important, he would figure out a way to make that clear to my call-screener.
Yeah, I don’t get it, I answer phones all day long and 99% of the time it’s “may I speak to X” and then I ask who it is. The problems come when somebody calls for me and expects me to know who they are, or the “hi, it’s me.” Who’s me? My biggest peeve is those people who don’t say what they want, when I say “may I help you,” they say “hi, how are you?” That has never led to a good call.
Exactly. I stopped giving my name and company out at the beginning of calls because I invariably have to say them again because the receptionist isn’t expecting it and doesn’t commit my name to memory. I find the transaction goes more smoothly if I wait for them to ask who I am.
Also a lot of the clients I’m working with often have receptionists who will just patch me directly to the extension, which is nice.
Man, I wish I had this ability. I’m not technically the receptionist, but I’m at the lowest position in our 4 person office, and my bosses do not want bothersome phone calls. It’s an open office, too, so often my boss is listening to me as I try to fence a call he doesn’t want. It’s weird.
When that happens, my defense shields go up. Many times, it’s a salesperson or a scammer. Normal people don’t want to shoot the shit with the receptionist!
I feel like a receptionist that doesn’t expect a caller to say who they are is poorly trained. I mean, one of the main aspects of their job is picking up and routing calls, right? If the name doesn’t matter in their system, then they have no need to clear up what name you said and you’ll go straight through regardless. The fact that they ask for a repeat of the name means the name matters…which means they should be expecting it! So why aren’t they paying attention?!
You must have more time to waste on cold calling salesmen than I do.
I suspect that a receptionist who automatically put thru anyone who said “I need to speak to whoever makes your buying decisions” would not remain a receptionist for long at any company I worked for. YMMV.