In the early days of the phone, you always answered with your phone number. After WW2 a number in the UK was the name of the exchange, then only four digits. that was easy to remember ad quick to say.
If you meet an elderly person, in their seventies or eighties or nineties, (writing in 2019) in the UK, they will probably be able to remember their first phone numbers. Household
Then along came longer numbers.
Then smaller families with single mothers. Single women received nuisance calls. They were advised to be more circumspect. They stopped revealing their name or number and started saying 'hello?'
Over in Singapore, where Chinese speakers are used to short, succinct sentences, the opening, Hello, when you are ringing a big company, is annoying to British, Australian and New Zealand customers.
If the phone operator or employee can't pronounce the company name, sometimes they might prefer not to say it. At HOD toastmasters in London I met a man from Thailand who was trying to improve his English by attending a Toastmasters Club of which he was a member. (You can attend and listen at many public clubs for free. Priority on the programme is given to members, so if you want to practise presentations or speeches you need to find a nearby club, or one which is welcoming, and join it.) he was also learning pronunciation at a class at City Lit in central London.
He told me that he worked for the Loyal Bank of Scotland. I assumed the company, which at that time had bad publicity in the papers, had changed its name. Half an hour later, hearing him mispronounce other words, I realised he was working for the Royal Bank of Scotland. No change in the name.
So the first task of a company or employee is to be able to say the company name.
You can hear your British and Commonwealth colleagues covering the phone and muttering to themselves or you, "For heavens' sake - why don't they say the company name!"
I presented Better Business English again to a group. We did the interactive telephone task, in pairs, pretending to be a phone operator answering callers, and a customer. The fluent English speakers immediately grasped the purpose of the exercise, to speak good English on the phone, and speak clearly and be polite and helpful.
What was not clear to them was whether to do one conversation in four minutes or whether to swap roles? If I had wanted them to swap roles, I should have rung the bell after two minutes.
I have done this workshop to several groups in Singapore and the UK. If you know a company which would like staff training, I am repeating and improving my business training so that I can sell my services. I am a native English speaker and lifelong student of NLP (positive thinking in a systematic fashion). I'm improving my interactive tasks at Toastmasters International. Any clubs wanting a workshop, please contact me.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Please follow me, bookmark your favourite posts and share links with your colleagues and friends.
If you meet an elderly person, in their seventies or eighties or nineties, (writing in 2019) in the UK, they will probably be able to remember their first phone numbers. Household
Then along came longer numbers.
Then smaller families with single mothers. Single women received nuisance calls. They were advised to be more circumspect. They stopped revealing their name or number and started saying 'hello?'
Over in Singapore, where Chinese speakers are used to short, succinct sentences, the opening, Hello, when you are ringing a big company, is annoying to British, Australian and New Zealand customers.
If the phone operator or employee can't pronounce the company name, sometimes they might prefer not to say it. At HOD toastmasters in London I met a man from Thailand who was trying to improve his English by attending a Toastmasters Club of which he was a member. (You can attend and listen at many public clubs for free. Priority on the programme is given to members, so if you want to practise presentations or speeches you need to find a nearby club, or one which is welcoming, and join it.) he was also learning pronunciation at a class at City Lit in central London.
He told me that he worked for the Loyal Bank of Scotland. I assumed the company, which at that time had bad publicity in the papers, had changed its name. Half an hour later, hearing him mispronounce other words, I realised he was working for the Royal Bank of Scotland. No change in the name.
So the first task of a company or employee is to be able to say the company name.
You can hear your British and Commonwealth colleagues covering the phone and muttering to themselves or you, "For heavens' sake - why don't they say the company name!"
I presented Better Business English again to a group. We did the interactive telephone task, in pairs, pretending to be a phone operator answering callers, and a customer. The fluent English speakers immediately grasped the purpose of the exercise, to speak good English on the phone, and speak clearly and be polite and helpful.
What was not clear to them was whether to do one conversation in four minutes or whether to swap roles? If I had wanted them to swap roles, I should have rung the bell after two minutes.
I have done this workshop to several groups in Singapore and the UK. If you know a company which would like staff training, I am repeating and improving my business training so that I can sell my services. I am a native English speaker and lifelong student of NLP (positive thinking in a systematic fashion). I'm improving my interactive tasks at Toastmasters International. Any clubs wanting a workshop, please contact me.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Please follow me, bookmark your favourite posts and share links with your colleagues and friends.
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