by Roger White, April 97
If you use English for profit, most of your English will be over a telephone--perhaps as much as 80% of the time you spend speaking will be on the telephone. So "telephone English" will be a kind of English you use a lot.
One kind of telephone English is leaving messages on recordings. If you call the United States, about 50% of your calls will end with you listening to a recording saying, "I'm not in right now, please leave me a message... <beep>" This is called voice mail, and if you leave a good voice mail message, your English will be much more effective.
A good voice mail message is succinct--it tells the person you are calling why you calling very quickly. One way to make a voice mail message succinct is to answer the following four questions:
a) Who am I (the caller)
/-- a person's name
b) Who am I trying to reach? (either... --{ -- a position in the organization
\-- a function to be accomplished
c) Why am I calling (similar to function in b))
d) How can the listener reach me (my phone number)
Who am I?
Start the message with your name, organization, and if you are calling to another country, your country. Americans love to get calls from overseas, so if they know you are calling from overseas, the person recieving the call will work extra hard to get you through to the right person.
Example:
"Hello, this is Roger White calling from Joong Ang Foreign Language Institute in Suwon, Korea."
Who am I trying to reach?
If the person or company you are calling is new to you, you can be trying to reach a person by their name, their title, or by their function in the organization.
Examples:
"I'm trying to reach John Jones." (name)
"I'm trying to reach the vice president of sales." (title)
"I'm trying to reach the person who can tell me about the new ZYX computer." (function)
Why am I calling?
It's good to leave in the message why you are calling, not just who you are.
First good reason:
Most of the time you are calling to ask someone to do something or to get a question answered. The person you are calling may need to gather some information before he or she can act or answer. If the person knows why you are calling, they can "do their homework" before they call you back. If you are not in, they can leave answers in your voice mail.
Second good reason:
You may be asking the wrong person for what you want done. Mr. Jones, whom you thought was in Sales, may actually be in Production. He can't get you sales information, but he knows that Mr. Smith, the sales manager, can, and he can have Mr. Smith call you back.
Example:
"I'm calling because I would like to interview someone in your company about the ZYX computer for a magazine article I'm writing."
How to reach me
Usually this is your phone number, but it may be a fax number, or an e-mail address or something else. It may be that you will call back later. Let the person you are calling know how to reach you.
Example:
"You can reach me at 251-9961... that's 251-9961. Thank you. <hang up>"
When you are leaving a phone number, say it at least two times. This gives the listener a much better chance of understanding what you are saying. A person listening to a phone message instinctively guesses much of what you are saying. But a phone number is exact, there is no way to guess a phone number. Leave it twice, and the listener has a much better chance of understanding it. If the listener is a stranger and isn't familiar with your way of speaking English (for example an Australian speaking to a Japanese, or a Korean speaking to an American) leave your phone number three times.
Say it three times because there are many different ways to say phone numbers, and the listener must listen to a different style as well as a different accent. Here are three examples of saying the phone number 221-5543
two-two-one <pause> five-five-four-three (American way)
double-two <pause> one-double-five <pause> four-three (Australian New Zealand way)
two-two-one-dasha-five-five-four-three (Korean way)
Most American have heard people say "double this" and "double that", so the Australian/New Zealand way of saying numbers is odd but understandable. Saying the dash in a phone number is uncommon in America, uncommon enough that many Americans will hear this as an odd way of saying the numeral "eight" rather than as dash. If you say the phone number a couple of times, the listener has an easier time deciphering what they are hearing.
Talking with real, live people
This same structure--who am I, who am I after, why am I calling, how to reach me--works very well if you are calling a company you don't know well. The first person you reach when you call a large company is usually a receptionist. This person's job is to politely answer the phone and transfer your call to the right person. This four part format will help the receptionist quickly understand why you are calling, so he or she can transfer you to the right person.
When you call a large American organization, such as a large company or a large government organization, you may be "passed around" a couple times before you reach the right person. You can tell each person you talk to the same message because they will not have heard what you've said.
So, this same structure you practice using for telephone messages will serve you well when to talk to real live people, too.