hello guys, this is my first post and I hope you will help me on this subject, I've been searching a lot of thing on how to improve my phone conversations. I've seen a lot of topics in the internet, but I need to know based on their actual experience. thank you, amber
By phone conversations do you mean chatting with you Mother? chatting with friends? talking to boss and/or colleagues? talking to existing customers? cold calling potential customers? What are the problems you believe you have with regards to your "conversations"?
So to "improve" we need to know where you are now. What do you think you are doing wrong? Have they given you negative feedback? Are there language or cultural differences which mean you don't understand each other?
When you say chatting with your boss, do you mean you guys have an informal atmosphere in your office? I'd be somewhat cautious trying to be buddy-buddy with my boss (if I had one). Just treat your boss with respect when you're talking to him/her face to face or over the phone. With colleagues it's somewhat different. Sometimes you just "click" with everybody, but sometimes you can't help but keep some people at arm's length. Are those the people that you have hard time speaking with over the phone, by any chance?
I don't know what the Philippines is like but from the private messages I've read from some cultures it seems that when talking to your boss you need to add "Sir", flatter and lie about how you feel etc. If you come from that kind of culture but your boss is "western" (Lots of NZ companies have call centres over there, and I'm sure other countries do too) then that won't go down well at all. So our advice might be to be more formal or it might be to be honest and flatter less - it all depends on the circumstances.
Some advice that's good for almost anywhere is to be polite and professional. If you know the purpose of the call before you have to make it, do some research on the subjects so that you will have intelligent things to say instead of struggling to respond.
Chatting on the phone can be a bit trickier than face-to-face conversations, especially with people you're not close to. That's because you don't get the visual cues from the person you're speaking with. It gets better with practice though, so just keep at it. I just Googled how to improve ones phone skills and found that the following search term yielded especially good results: how to improve your telephone communication skills You may also try asking someone at the office you trust (a friendly colleague, a friend) to give you feedback on your phone skills. You might get some useful suggestions.