BUSINESS Establishing Best Practices for Your Business ABC COMPANY – BEST PRACTICES Telephone Answering Effective Date ________ , 2021 Topic Telephone answering Effective Date Clearly indicate whether this is an “initial” BP or “revised” BP (if so, what version?). Users must be able to ascertain which version is current. Some companies include an “issued date,” usually because they release new/revised BPs in time to provide advance notice, prior to their effective dates. Purpose To ensure consistent answering of our incoming telephone calls in a professional manner Application All external calls received via ABC landlines. Does not apply to our intra-company calls (ABC employees answering internal or external phone calls from colleagues). The Process Answer incoming calls as promptly as possible in a friendly, welcoming voice, using the following greeting: “Hello, you’ve reached ABC company. __________ speaking. How may I help you?” An acceptable abbreviated alternative is: “ABC Company, ________ speaking. How may I help you?” If call volume prevents you from answering the incoming call within four rings, endeavor to place your current call on hold, clearly explaining this to the caller. Pick up the new call and ask politely, “May I place you on hold for just a moment or call you back promptly?” If necessary, apologize, take the new caller’s number and arrange to return the call. Return the call promptly or at the agreed upon time. Conclusion Hopefully, aſter reading this article, you are ready to subscribe to the merits of BPs. You should seriously consider introducing the best practices concept into your business. Sure, it requires some invested time up front (what worthwhile endeavor doesn’t?), but you’ll be glad you did it, and your employees will be too! When you are ready to begin that journey, reread this article to refresh your memory. I promise that you won’t get a visit 28 KEYNOTES MARCH 2021 “Engineers are not the right people to develop a set of final assembly or installation instructions.” from Tony Soprano! Engage your team members and create an atmosphere of empowerment where they feel ownership of the task at hand. Start small with something simple, such as the phone-answering example. Be a facilitator, not a dictator. Once the team has begun to embrace the value of having best practices in your business, consider permitting each partici- pant to suggest a topic that the team should work on. It might be something considered problematic or a topic known to have caused internal and/or external consternation. Remember, it may not matter that some team members are from different departments, because all input is welcome. Indeed, it’s oſten those who are not close to the issue who can see it more clearly. Of course, be that veteran sheep dog, keeping the effort on track, and be sure to avoid driſting into turf-related issues or intellectual quagmire. An important part of your job (as facili- tator) is to pilot the vessel and make sure it remains on course. Build out your installation or repair processes step by step, and where applicable, refer to any available relevant videos or create your own. Establish the best way and then figure out how to communicate it to those who need to know. But don’t be afraid to update and improve upon it; better tools or techniques may be discovered. Use this information in your training and onboarding of new employees. Codify all this best practices stuff somewhere sensible such as in a binder, and consider copy- writing it. There is no doubt that you can do this. Good luck. The topic for our next article in this series will be “Demysti- fying Your Income Statement,” where we’ll explain and decode this important financial statement, without the accounting mumbo jumbo.” Noel Flynn is a degreed business management con- sultant with global senior leadership experience, including more than 20 years in manufacturing, wholesale distribution and consulting sectors of the security industry. Noel has been a senior executive, officer, board director and adviser to not-for-profit and for-profit companies in numerous industries worldwide. This includes being an ALOA board member since 2011, and he is also an ACE instructor, developing and teaching business management. WWW.ALOA.ORG
