In most of the industrialized world, the telephone is ubiquitous. Virtually every business desk has one, and most homes have several. Increasing numbers of people have cell phones or car phones. Telephones are so highly visible and readily available that it is easy to forget that it wasn’t always so and that a large portion of the world’s population has yet to place a phone call.
The defining lines between the telephone and telephonic services are becoming ever more blurry with rapid innovations in communications. We may be speaking to a friend or customer on an actual corded telephone, a smart cell phone, over a tablet via Skype, through any number of computer-based voice over internet protocols (VoIP), webcams, online meeting platforms, and other such services. For the sake of this lesson, telephonic communication is considered any type of voice-to-voice communication (with or without a video component).
It’s important to remember as we speak with a customer telephonically that we are trying to decrease customer anxiety and dissatisfaction, not increase it with some of the frustrations of the technology. There are a number of tactics we can use to put our customer at ease, while still taking advantage of the power of telephonic systems.