Enhance Your Skills by Learning Proper Telephonic Conversation

What is a telephonic conversation?

A telephonic conversation is a way of communication or sharing of information between two people where they are not present face to face.  It is a medium of interaction to discuss various matters and exchange valuable thoughts and ideas with each other. A telephonic conversation is the most effective mode when time is short and the distance is longer.

Talking over the telephone requires good and powerful communication skills as it can help you convey the first impression of your business or your organization.  Proper planning of the message before making a call is a good way for an effective telephonic conversation with efficiency and confidence.

 

Below are the tips for learning proper telephonic conversation:

 

1. Preparation for the call

 

It is not necessary to prepare a script before making a call but to make points of what to say and whether there is any particular piece of information to be given to the person.  It is important to respect other people’s time by considering the time difference if the person is in some other part of the world.

 

2. Tone of voice

 

Message delivery is one of the most essential parts of telephonic conversation. If the tone of the voice seems disinterested or bored the other person might find it disrespectful to continue the conversation. Although the person cannot see you your voice can communicate a lot so it is important to make sure the tone and the message conveyed are similar.

 

3. Listen Carefully

 

Listening is an aspect of communication. A telephonic conversation is having a dialogue between two people so it is necessary to listen carefully to what the other person is speaking to maintain a healthy and effective conversation. Contributing to a dialogue along with asking important questions shows your interest in communicating.

 

4. Speak clearly and be short

 

Speaking too fast can make you repeat your sentences often and the person on the other side might have difficulty understanding what you are talking about.  Being short and brief is a good way of communication. As the person cannot see you over the telephone long sentences might make the person lose his concentration from the actual point of conversation. Ideas should be formed in a structured way and jumping from one topic to another in haste is not the right way to communicate.

 

5. Ask when you don’t understand something

 

The best way to avoid confusion is to ask at once when you don’t understand something. It could be because of various reasons such as the person speaking quickly, having mother tongue issue or background noise that you are not able to listen clearly to what the person is speaking therefore asking for clarification is a better way to communicate than to guess as to what he is trying to say or mean.

 

6. Don’t do other things at the same time

 

Doing other things at the same time while you are in the middle of a conversation can take away your attention.  The other person in the conversation is needed to be given full attention otherwise it can come across as disrespectful and he might think you are not interested or the conversation is not enough important for you to devote your entire concentration to what he is speaking.

 

7. Choose a quiet environment

 

Make sure that you choose a quiet place for the telephonic conversation where there is less or no disturbance at all from your end. This will help you to listen carefully and understand what the person is talking about and you can have proper attention to the entire conversation.

 

 

8. Avoid interruptions

 

Be patient with the speaker and don’t interrupt while he is telling something. Once he has stopped talking you can make reflective statements and verify or clarify by asking questions.

 

9. Appropriate Greetings

 

Greetings say a lot about you. Some people might not be used to casual greetings so the most effective thing is to come to terms with a suitable greeting such as “hello” for everyone. Being a good communicator expects you to set your conversation rightly by identifying yourself when you initiate the communication with the recipient.

 

10. Avoid Fillers

 

Fillers in a way might send a signal to the other person that you are still thinking and you are not interested to continue the conversation. Sounding upbeat and enthusiastic will make the speaker understand your willingness to communicate further.

 

11. Questioning  Skills

 

Questions should be framed to gain the desired information. One of the amazing ideas is to write down the important questions before the call so that during the conversation you can listen attentively to the speaker. Following are the three types of questions to be asked during a telephonic conversation:

1. Open questions: These ask for more than a yes or no answer and can be started with who, where, what, when, why, and how.
2. Closed questions: The questions are used to verify or clarify information.
3. Forced Choice questions: These questions have two options to answer from.

 

12. Communicate Promptly

Responding promptly is a sign of good leadership and communication. Conversation over a telephone requires proper attentiveness towards the speaker to be prompt in reply or asking any required question which might be useful in the future.

 

13. Usage of proper language

 

There is a major difference between the language used in personal and professional conversations. Informal language is not acceptable in formal communication where respectful and appropriate behavior has to be taken care of.

 

14. Never forget to smile

 

This might sound a little odd but a smile on your face over the telephone can also bring a huge difference in the tone of your voice while you speak.  A happy and smiling voice is a good way to make the other person know your interest in the conversation and the urge to take it further and communicate positively.

 

15. What and How will you say

 

Clearly understanding the purpose and intention of the message you want to convey is important to deliver it effectively. Along with what you say how you say it is also necessary to be sure of. A positive and non-judgemental approach while speaking creates trust and confidence since the person on the other side can only listen and not see you.

 

Conclusion

Concluding the entire topic I would say that in a telephonic conversation it is important to keep certain things in mind to make it more effective and useful. It is a process of communicating and sharing information by word of mouth which makes it more needful to exchange thoughts and ideas in a way that clarifies the concerns of the other person without consuming much time. Pitch, tone, and the rate of speech convey the emotion of the message irrespective of the content it carries. Since communication is the key way to achieve goals so learning all the communication styles is preferred to avoid improper conversation.

 

This was a chapter on Enhancing your skills by learning proper telephonic conversation. To learn about more such topics keep on reading other chapters.

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