- Has this ever happened to you?
Phone call comes in,
and you realize it's an international number,
and so the call is probably going to be in English,
so you let it just go to voicemail.
Today, I'll share a story with you
about a real life client of mine
who was afraid of answering the phone in English
and how they overcame that fear
so that you too can start feeling confident
answering the phone in English.
Hi there, I'm your English coach, Christina
and welcome to Business English with Christina,
where you'll see how other professionals
just like you solved their problems in English
so you can too.
Today, let's start with a story from a client of mine.
We'll call him Frederick,
not his real name, of course.
But when I interviewed him
about the difficulties and the challenges
that he was having using English in his work,
one of the things that he said was the most difficult
was using the telephone in English.
And he said it was so bad
that if the phone rang and he looked at it,
and he saw that it was an international call in English,
he would literally step away from the phone
and suddenly go and run to the bathroom.
He was literally hiding in the bathroom
from his calls in English.
And I'll be honest, he's not the only one
who's told me that they do that.
So maybe you do it too.
No shame. You're not alone.
But we're gonna fix that today.
And you know, I mean, same thing for me.
When I was learning French and starting my business,
I didn't run in the bathroom or the toilets
and hide from the phone,
but I didn't like calling people.
And if the phone was ringing,
I would often let it go to voicemail
so that I could listen to their message,
take some time to prepare,
and then call them back when I was ready.
Now that is a technique that you can use, but, of course,
you don't want to always depend on that technique.
And you know, like I said,
answering the phone in a different language,
it's something that's not easy.
Because when we communicate with someone,
so much of the communication passes
through the facial expressions, body language, et cetera,
and on the telephone, all you have is the voice.
Yeah, and there's a lot of smart,
intelligent very professional people that I work with
that they hide from this problem for a very long time.
But the good news is we can solve it.
But here's the thing,
running to hide in the bathroom
instead of actually picking up the phone,
that's hurting you.
You can't make business connections.
You might annoy the people trying to reach you.
And I mean, really, just like hiding in the bathroom,
that doesn't look very professional, let's be honest.
And every time that you avoid the situation,
that you literally run away from the situation,
it makes you feel less confident.
It reinforces that idea that, "I can't handle this,"
and we wanna eliminate that feeling.
And most importantly, you just deserve better.
I'm passionate about helping people like Frederick
and you also.
So can we make a promise to ourselves, like pinky swear?
If you don't know what that is,
just ask me in the comments, I'll explain it.
But let's make a promise,
let's pinky swear something together:
no more hiding in the bathroom.
Say it with me.
No more hiding in the bathroom from phone calls in English.
And not the bathroom and not the coffee room, like nowhere.
No hiding from phone calls in English.
And you can do it,
even if you've been avoiding phone calls
in English for a long time.
Here's how. Start by being prepared.
I've done some studies in neurolanguage coaching,
and so I know how important it is
to prepare for your situation
in order to reduce that stress and that panic
that your lizard brain is feeling,
that fight or flight syndrome.
And if you prepare for it,
it can reduce that feeling of stress and panic.
So the first simple technique,
just have a notebook at your desk.
This way, as you're talking,
you can slow down the conversation
to try to make some notes
to check that you've noted things correctly.
And you can then go back and look at your notes
and even call the other person back later
if you feel like you're not absolutely sure
about what you talked about in that conversation.
And then have a plan
for when you're going to actually pick up the phone.
This is my very high-tech phone here.
Start by imagining your success, visualizing your success.
I know it sounds a little woo-woo,
but, honestly, so many studies have shown
that visualization actually works.
So start by visualizing your success in this phone call.
You're at your desk, the phone rings,
you see that it's probably going to be in English,
and that's okay.
You feel ready.
You say, "I can do this."
You take a quick but deep breath,
and, yes, you do have time to do that
while the phone is ringing.
Don't panic.
And then go ahead and answer it,
feeling confident that you can handle it.
Now here's a little brain-friendly advice
from a neurolanguage coach, which that would be me.
Anyway, if you want to start feeling more comfortable
and more confident on the phone,
the simplest thing that you can do is be prepared
with some typical phone expressions
that you know that you master,
you feel comfortable using,
and they'll help you feel better
for the rest of your conversation.
If you know exactly what to say when you pick up the phone,
it starts the conversation off
on a confident, positive note.
And here are some examples of what you can say.
For a simple greeting
when maybe you already know the person's calling,
you see their number
or it's saved in your phone or something,
you can say something like,
"Good morning, this is Christina.
How can I help you?"
Or if it's in the afternoon, of course, you would say,
"Good afternoon, this is Christina.
How can I help you?"
And if it's part of your company practices,
you can also say the name of your company,
the name of your department
and ask how you can help the other person.
Good afternoon, this is Christina from Fantastic Corp.
How can I help you today?
So how will you answer the phone in English?
Let me help you feel more comfortable in English
so you never have to run and hide in the toilets again,
just like I help people like Frederick
and other professionals who are hiding in the toilets.
Let's all just stop hiding in the toilets.
Now, what you can do is go over
to my blog christinarebuffet.com
and check out the blog post
that goes with this video lesson
because you can get all of the expressions
that you're learning today,
write them down in your notebook,
and just become more comfortable and confident and prepared
to pick up the phone in English.
Okay, great, so now you've got the first part,
the first step to go
from afraid of using the phone in English
to confident in picking up the phone in English.
And we can move on to the next step,
which is learning how to focus
on what the other person is saying
rather than focusing on your English level.
The first goal is to make sure
that you know who is calling,
where they're from, what company, not what country,
and what they're looking for
or what do they want you to help them with.
Now, they might spontaneously tell you all of that,
but they might not,
or you might not catch what they say right away,
and that's okay.
So here are some polite ways
that you can show the other person
that you're listening to what they say
and that you want to be sure to get the information right.
Now, if you didn't hear the person's name,
you didn't catch it, you just didn't understand it
because maybe it's a name that you're not used to hearing,
or maybe they forgot to say it.
You can totally ask them for their name,
but you're not going to say, "What's your name?"
You would say, "Sorry, I didn't get your name.
Could you repeat that, please?"
If you want to ask them what company
or what department they're calling you from,
then, of course, you can ask that by saying,
"May I ask what company you're with?"
Or, "Which department did you say you were calling from?"
Now, you can use those phrases
if the person already told you,
and you just want to double check,
but you can also use them if the person didn't tell you
and that information it's helpful for you to know,
you can totally just ask them.
And you also want to know what they need
or what they want help with.
And here's a little secret...
It's not a secret, but, if it helps to reassure you,
we native speakers,
we reformulate what the other person said all the time.
And it's just a good way of communicating to make sure
that you have understood what the person actually said.
It's just a good communication technique,
native speaker or not.
Plus, it makes you sound
like you're really listening to the other person,
and I promise you, they will appreciate that.
So here's how to do that.
For example, you could say,
"All right, so if I understand you correctly,
you're having a problem with the server.
Is that correct?
Or, you could say,
"So, just to make sure that I've got all of the details,
you're having a problem with the server
and you would like us to send someone
to fix it this afternoon.
Is that correct?
So at this point,
you have made already some incredible progress.
You picked up the phone,
you answered in a professional and confident way,
and you understood what the other person needs
or wants from you.
And sometimes having the courage to pick up the phone,
doing the preparation to be able to say the right thing,
sometimes that's enough for you.
But maybe you're not 100% confident
that you can catch everything the other person says.
And that's okay.
You can check by saying,
"Okay, let me make sure
that I've written down everything correctly."
And then, if you need a little extra time,
you have to ask a colleague,
like call a friend but in the office,
you can ask the person to just wait a minute.
And the way that we say that in English is,
"Let me check on that for you.
May I put you on hold?"
Or you can offer to call them back later.
I'd like to look into that and get back to you.
Would it be possible
for me to call you back this afternoon?
All right, so congratulations.
Now you are prepared to pick up the phone
and start the conversation confidently,
make a good impression on the other person,
and for you to feel comfortable
about just that first step
of picking up the phone in English
and not running to the bathroom instead.
And you know how to ask
for some information to clarify something,
or if you need to pause the conversation
so that you can go and get more information
and call them back later,
you know how to do that also.
So how will you feel when you answer the phone in English?
I mean, why not start practicing this today?
So in the comments down below,
I'm gonna ask you to write exactly what you would say
if you were at work, someone called,
and you pick up the phone in English.
Put it down in the comments
and that way if you don't use it, you lose it.
So let's use it; it's better than losing it.
I'm a poet, and I didn't even know it.
All right, and if this lesson was helpful for you,
I would love to know,
and there are three ways that you can tell me.
First, give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube,
and, of course, subscribe to my channel
so that I can send you
more business English lessons every week.
And if you want to see the expressions
from today's video lesson,
go over to the blog post.
Everything is there for you,
and you can do a quick quiz
to see if you remember what you learned today.
And the third thing is you can continue watching this video,
which is all about how to have more confidence in English
just in a general manner.
Because so many of my clients say
that they lack that confidence,
and I wanna help you find it.
All right, thank you so much for improving your business
and improving your English
with Business English with Christina.
And I'll see you next time.