You're learning with Nine to Five English - business english for the
workplace.
Hi Tim here with another nine to five english lesson. Today we're going to
learn some expressions for answering the phone in english.
using the telephone is an important part of business
but the way we communicate is a little different from
in-person conversations. We have some special expressions
we use to answer the phone ask for clarification
and get a call back. At the start of a phone call
it's a good idea to make sure the other person knows
who you are. You can identify yourself in a few different ways. Besides saying
my name is, we often use the expression this is before our name.
But don't try to use this expression in person.
i only say this is Tim when i'm talking on the phone. Let's practice
identifying ourselves at the start of a phone call.
Listen to each example then repeat it for yourself. Ready? Let's get started!
Hi there this is jason locke calling
from Milton Enterprises.
Oh hello my name's Wendy chambers with BMA Bank.
Good morning Dirk here. How can i help?
Hello Francine speaking.
As you can hear we identify ourselves not only when we call someone else
but also when we answer the phone to do that we just say something simple
like Tim here or tim speaking now because we only have a person's
voice on the phone there's a higher chance we don't
understand something it might be a single word or a whole
sentence that isn't clear in this situation you need to ask
for clarification you might ask could you repeat that or what was that
or you might simply say that you didn't catch something which means you didn't
hear correctly let's try some examples of
asking for clarification remember to repeat the examples after you hear
them sorry what was that
could you repeat that last part again sorry did you say 14 or 40.
i'm sorry i didn't catch that
one very important word you heard several times in those examples is
sorry that word helps make our requests more polite
you also heard an example of asking for clarification
between two similar words in this case you just ask
did you say x or y another common situation is when you
need to talk about calling someone back maybe you called a
business to talk to someone who's not there or
maybe someone called your business to talk to someone who's not in
in any case we need to arrange a callback polite ways to arrange a
callback often use the expressions could you
or would you for example you might say could you ask john to call
me back or would you like tom to call you back
later and sometimes it's you who has to call someone back
because you're busy or have a poor signal in that case you might
ask would you mind if i called you back let's try some practice with asking for
a callback using these expressions once again repeat the examples after you
hear them could you have dave call me back at this
number
would you like me to ask mary to return your call
please have charlie call me when he's
available
would you mind if i called you back in 15 minutes
one useful expression that we just heard is to have someone do something
that is you can say i will have greg call you back tomorrow that just means
you are asking greg to call the person back
okay so we've practiced some useful expressions
but how do these sound in a conversation let's listen to a short dialogue between
carly and bob bob is calling carly's office
to talk with ginny schwartz but jenny isn't there let's listen
hello ace business machines hi this is bob turner may i speak with
jenny schwartz sorry but jenny's not in the office
right now okay could you have her call me back
please
does that make sense bob identifies himself
and asks to speak with ginny schwartz when carly tells him ginny's out of the
office bob asks her to have jenny call him back
now it's your turn to practice we'll repeat the dialogue
but this time we're going to beep out the second speaker's words
you will have to say those parts yourself
remember to identify yourself as bob turner and ask to speak with ginny
schwartz then you'll politely ask carly to have
ginny call you back ready here we go
hello ace business machines sorry but jenny's not in the office
right now
all right that's all for this lesson we've learned some great ways to
identify yourself on the phone ask for clarification
and talk about calling someone back we'll be back soon with some more useful
english expressions until then so long and happy learning