Does your staff answer the phone properly?

By Dr. Nate Booth

Your words are what you say. Your voice qualities are how you say those words. Voice qualities include tonality, pitch, speed, degree of loudness, and variety. For optimal effectiveness, voice qualities need to be appropriate for the situation. In general, the person answering your office phone should be cheerful and friendly. He or she should also be skillful at matching the voice qualities of the caller. If the caller talks softly and slowly, your office person should do the same.

The best way to evaluate voice qualities over the phone is by recording calls, then listening to the recording, noticing areas that can be improved, and immediately doing a re-recording that incorporates the enhancements. As a general rule, most people would benefit from increasing the emotion and variety in their voices by about 20%.

Author bio
Dr. Nate Booth is a speaker, consultant, and author who provides dentists with the information and systems they need to thrive in their dental practices. Dr. Booth is a practice-management advisor for ChaseHealthAdvance. He is the creator of the in-office, DVD-based program, The “Yes” System: How to Make It Easy for People to Accept Comprehensive Dentistry. For more information, go to www.theyessystem.com or call (800) 917-0008.