Professional Phone Etiquette

The title of this post may be “Professional Phone Etiquette,” but let’s get real. This is phone etiquette for everyday life, and rules you should follow with EVERYONE.

Put yourself into the situation. If you are in meetings all day and can’t answer your phone, you’re going to let calls go to voicemail right? Now think about this: If you cannot answer your phone, is the fact that someone is calling repeatedly going to change that? Probably not.

I can only speak for myself, but when I don’t answer my phone, I am either busy and not able to answer, or not near the phone. In either instance, calling repeatedly does not make a difference. I’m the customer/client a lot of the time too, so I understand what it’s like when you need to speak to someone as soon as possible, however calling multiple times within a 2 to 3 hour span probably won’t do much. The best way to handle it is to leave a voicemail and try back later in the day. This does not mean an hour later. Calling in the morning, and again after lunch is a safe bet.

If you still don’t hear from someone, they could be out of the office, so give it a day or two, and perhaps send an email. Give it time because you don’t know how many other calls and emails your contact is trying to process. My biggest piece of advice would be to try to think of it if it were you on the other end, and think about how you would like someone to try and get in touch with you. The more you think about phone etiquette this way, and acknowledge that your contact may be preoccupied, the more likely it is that you’ll get a good response..