in this lesson i'm going to show you how to start and end a business call now this is
part of my speak like a manager series it's one of the lessons in that series
and those lessons basically all help you to either speak and communicate more effectively in a
business context whether you're already a manager or you're aspiring to become a manager okay so
let's get started and learn how you can start and end a business call in a professional way
so as you can see i've divided the board into two parts in first we'll look at a formal way to start
a business call and then we'll look at a slightly more informal way now even the informal way it's
still in the business situation you're not calling your buddies and your friends right so it's still
going to be a call perhaps to a colleague or to your manager but somebody that you know
and in the first situation in the formal one it's more when you're calling someone that you do not
know or you've met and you don't know very well all right so in all cases what we're going to do
in starting a call is have an introduction where you say who you are then we're going to have
the purpose which is why you're calling and then a reference to the time which is
how long whether that person has time to talk to you okay so who what and
uh whether the person has time all right so first you introduce yourself uh sorry
first you say hello right hello mr smith because again he's not your buddy or she right so you're
not going to say john or bob you're going to say mr smith then you introduce yourself
this is sandra bell from the hr department okay let's suppose there this is a huge organization
everybody does not know each other so sandra bell has to introduce herself nevertheless so she
could start off with something like this hello mr smith this is sandra bell from the hr department
next why is she calling i'm calling to confirm that you received my email okay so that's
one way or i'm calling to uh confirm that you will be attending the marketing conference in london
we'd like to make some travel arrangements okay or just that much even and then before
going on about anything more checking whether the person actually has time right now to talk
to you so this is a polite formal way to ask that would you have a few minutes to speak
okay let's run through the whole thing hello mr smith this is sandra bell from the hr department
i'm calling to confirm if you are attending the marketing conference in london next week
would you have a few minutes to speak okay that's the whole script and then mr smith
is going to answer and based on whatever his answer is the conversation will continue or
uh sandra will make a plan to call him back but let's suppose there are other situations
in which you're calling someone all right so you could say for example this is sandra bell
i was referred to you by bob johnson okay you're giving the person some kind of context so they
know who you are or why you're calling and you could say again i'm calling to talk to
you about the to discuss the marketing conference in london uh would you have a few minutes to speak
or hello mr smith this is sandra bell we met at the marketing conference in london
i'm calling to confirm that you received my email would you have a few minutes to speak okay
or the same way depending on the context perhaps um even when we're this is called
speak like a manager we're talking about business but in any kind of formal situation
even in a university perhaps you have to contact your professor you could say hello professor
smith i'm a student in your economics class i'm calling to confirm the date of our examination or
something like that would you have a few minutes to speak okay so that's the formal situation
now let's look at the informal situation again the same three steps you're going to say who you are
why you're calling and check if the person has time to talk but now you know the other person
all right perhaps you go to lunch together you know each other you work with each other often
so then you're on a first name basis so you just call and you say hi john or hi mary this is susan
or it's bill hi john it's bill i'm calling to check if you got my email
now let's see how the language also changes it's a little more informal instead of saying i'm
calling to confirm that you received my email i'm calling to check if you got my email okay
instead of saying i'm calling to confirm if you will be attending the marketing conference in
london you could just say i'm calling to to check if you're going to the marketing conference okay
so you see the same information but just expressed a little more uh informally is this a good time
instead of saying would you have a few minutes to speak okay they know each other so is this a
good time to talk or am i catching you at a bad time this is a very popular
expression both of these are popular expressions okay but that's more when you know each other
in an informal business context so let's run through that one again uh hi mary this is susan
i'm calling to check if you got my email is this a good time to talk okay that's it
one two three who you are why you're calling and if the person has time to talk and that's
very important and a lot of people miss this step okay they just do the first part
and sometimes they do the second part and then they just continue with the second part without
checking whether the other person has any time to talk to them and that's not very polite and it's
not very professional so make sure that you do this so that you don't start talking and then the
person will tell you i'm sorry i'm sorry i don't have time to talk to you and suddenly the whole
conversation has become negative and you don't want to do that you want to keep all possibilities
open in a business situation all right so this was how to start the call now let's look at how to end
the call okay so now you've had your conversation you finished your discussion with the person
on the phone and now it's time to end the call so there's usually one or two parts to that
so let's look at the formal call first all right so that's going to include thanks as well as
possibly talking about the future let's see how to do that so the thanking part can go like this
thank you very much for your time thank you very much for your advice thank you very much for your
help whatever the context okay whatever the person did for you thank you for your very much for your
recommendations for your suggestions for your input all right depending on the context
you can adapt this sentence but you want to thank them and you're and by thanking them you're also
saying this call is now coming to an end all right so thank you very much for your advice
if you're not saying anything more after that if there's no future contact then you could if
you wish add another line i really appreciate it okay and then that's the end of the call and
he will that person will hang up and you'll hang up but if you have something more planned
in the future then you could say just this lie thank you very much for your advice
i look forward to meeting you in person or i look forward to meeting you at the conference
or if that's not the situation thank you very much for your advice i will keep you informed
okay whatever the situation was that you know this sentence will depend on your particular
conversation and you can adapt it accordingly but basically thinking and making some reference to
the future if you have something to talk about in the future all right so that's the formal
situation and in the informal context again with a colleague or a manager or something you could
just say thanks instead of thank you thanks john thanks for your help mary very kind of informal
but still polite way to speak and then again if there is something to talk about in the future
you could just say well see you on wednesday see you later talk to you later bye for now okay
so that's in the informal context so again really just two parts thinking and possibly referring to
the future in some way so now what's happened we have covered how to start a call and how to end
a call but how are you going to remember this well here are some suggestions first of course
you can go to our website at www.ingwit.com there you can do a quiz on this and really master these
expressions and know which is formal which is informal what do i say first what are the steps
or not that many steps okay they're really just three steps in the intro one or two steps in
the in the ending and that's it but you still need to practice it you need to say it out loud
it's not enough for me to say it and for you to hear it it's for you to hear it yourself and to
say it and to practice saying these words okay so you might want to go back watch the video again
pause it say them aloud the more you get comfortable with saying it the easier it
will be when you actually have to make those kind of phone calls in a business situation okay
you can also record yourself all right record yourself on your phone saying it listen to
yourself listen to your accent listen to your your pronunciation see if there's something that you
can correct compare it to my way of pronouncing something and see if that will help you to speak
more clearly okay and another thing you can do is to try it with a friend okay you can role
play you can one person is calling one person is the one who's receiving the call and you can
practice this together the main thing is to use it yourself don't just listen to this lesson or
watch the lesson but actually participate in it by speaking yourself alright so that's it for now
thanks very much for watching don't forget to subscribe to continue to get lots more
lessons in the speak like a manager series thanks very much for watching bye for now