I’m a big online shopper, which means I sometimes need to call a company’s customer support team. While I’ve had some really great phone support experiences, I’ve also had a few not-so-great interactions with reps who could’ve benefitted from a quick lesson in phone etiquette. I’ve also been on the other side of the phone as a rep, so I understand both sides of the story.
Proper phone etiquette is critical for customer support reps, as they’re often the first interaction that a customer has with a brand. If the support rep doesn’t make an excellent impression, it can be damaging to the relationship between the customer and the brand.
By following the 10 essential rules of phone etiquette below, you’ll be equipped to deliver an excellent customer support experience and avoid common phone support pitfalls.
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Phone Etiquette Rules
- Be available.
- Create the right environment.
- Immediately introduce yourself.
- Speak clearly and calmly.
- Actively listen and take notes.
- Be empathetic.
- Meet your customer where they’re at.
- Ask before putting someone on hold or transferring a call.
- Be honest if you don't know the answer.
- Close out your calls with next steps.
1. Be available.
It’s important to be available when you (or your company) say you’ll be available. There’s nothing more frustrating to a customer than calling for help during business hours only to be sent to voicemail.
Your company likely has SLAs and internal expectations of how quickly you should be answering customer calls. By being alert and near your phone at all times, you should have no problem meeting that expectation.
Pro tip: I recommend giving the call two to three rings before answering. This is still a speedy response window and it allows you to collect yourself before jumping into the call. If your company receives high call volumes, consider leveraging AI tools that help handle overflow phone calls by providing issue resolution and automatic call routing.
2. Create the right environment.
While it might sound obvious, ensuring that you’ve created an appropriate working environment to take customer calls is critical to how the customer experiences the interaction.
Making sure you have a quiet environment, reliable internet speed, and the right tools at your disposal allows you to efficiently resolve the customer’s concern. Don’t forget to turn off your personal phone’s ringer and limit distractions from things like the TV, your favorite music playlist, or any other external stimuli. It creates a poor experience if your customer has to struggle to hear you or if the call dips in and out.
Additionally, if you’re distracted, you run the risk of missing critical details the customer shares with you, leading to a longer phone call and a potentially frustrated customer.
Pro tip: When it comes to having the right setup, if you’re solely taking phone calls, I recommend using a headset with an attached mic. If you take customer calls over Zoom, make sure you have a blurred background or background image and that you have a reliable webcam.
No matter how you take calls, I strongly suggest using dual monitors. This makes your life easier by letting you use one monitor to actively problem-solve and use the other monitor to see the customer or their info at the same time.
3. Immediately introduce yourself.
It’s important to let the caller know what company they’ve reached and whom they’re speaking to as soon as you get connected to them. This helps customers know that they’ve reached the right place and helps them feel confident in handing over whatever personal information they need to give you to solve their problem. (Plus, introducing yourself is just good manners, plain and simple!)
Pro tip: Practice answering the phone with, “Hi, thanks for calling [Your company], this is [Your first name]. How can I help you today?” Your customer will be met with warmth and an acknowledgement that they’re in the right place to get the help they need.
And if by chance it’s someone in the wrong place, you’ll at least save everyone involved from having a frustrating conversation.
4. Speak clearly and calmly.
I’m guilty of getting flustered in customer interactions when I feel like I don’t know the answers (or if a customer is especially upset). I definitely have to make a conscious effort to slow down, speak clearly, and always keep a calm tone — especially in those tough situations.
Speaking clearly with customers is especially important because if you’re on the phone, the person on the other end of the line only has your voice to go off of in this interaction. This means that while they may not be able to read your body language, they actually can hear it in your voice when you smile or are happy.
Similarly, they can hear it in your tone if you’re annoyed, disinterested, or defensive.
Here are a few key tips to follow:
- You should always speak clearly, mind your volume level, and stay cheerful and calm when speaking to customers. This sets the right tone for your conversation from the get-go.
- While it can be hard to stay calm and articulate when a customer is upset with you (I’ve been there — many times!), it is incredibly important to do so. Keeping your tone steady and calm during tense situations helps avoid further escalation.
Pro tip: Focus on articulating your words in a steady and calm tone. If you find yourself repeating the same phrases often in your interactions, practice them on your own to build your confidence and minimize the chance of mumbling or misspeaking.
In my experience, customers are usually the first ones to offer feedback that can help us improve how we support them. If a customer asks you to speak up or speak more clearly, don’t take it personally. Just use that feedback to improve your communication skills during your next interaction.
5. Actively listen and take notes.
Hands down, I think the art of active listening is the most critical skill set to have in a customer support role. We all know there’s a difference between hearing and listening to someone, which is why you need to focus on active listening in your customer phone calls.
Active listening means hearing and processing everything the customer says and responding in real time, as opposed to using a pre-defined script to respond. Being an active listener shows your customers you’re present and dedicated to helping them find a resolution.
Plus, chances are they called you because they needed a human to help them. If they wanted an auto-generated response, they would’ve gone to a chatbot or submitted a ticket instead.
Shawn Plummer, the CEO of The Annuity Expert, knows the benefits of listening actively to customers. Plummer says:
“[Listening actively] involves not interrupting and repeating back what they’ve said to confirm understanding. It helps the customer feel heard and valued. In my industry, a client might be confused about annuity options. I would say, ‘I understand you’re finding it difficult to choose the right annuity. Let me clarify each option for you.’”
Don’t forget to take notes. If you’re like me and you often forget important details once a call ends, I strongly recommend using whatever CRM or customer support platform your company uses to take detailed notes in real-time.
While you might be tempted to skip note-taking, here’s why I find it so critical:
- You hold yourself accountable for completing follow-up items. It’s easy to move on to the next call and completely lose track of what you promised to do for a customer.
- You’re able to share important insights about the customer with other internal colleagues who are part of the account team or who may need to get involved in the customer’s case.
- Note-taking also ensures that during long-winded explanations from customers, you won’t need to ask them to repeat themselves.
Pro tip: By note-taking in your existing software tools, you’re also helping your CRM or Help Desk platform surface trends and key customer feedback, especially if your tool leverages an AI component.
6. Be empathetic.
In my tenure in the customer experience space, I have seen a little bit of empathy go a very long way when it comes to interacting with customers. And if you work in customer support, chances are you’re already well-versed in practicing professional empathy.
Things like active listening, apologizing to customers for a poor experience, and showing that you care are a few easy ways to practice professional empathy.
While you likely aren’t directly responsible for the experience the customer is having, a simple statement like “I’m so sorry for the technical issues you’re having” can put a customer at ease and let them know that you’re on their side.
While empathy is important, you have to be mindful of using the right language when being empathetic with customers. Avoid saying things that feel negative towards your company or product and be mindful to choose words that are neutral and professional.
How I learned this the hard way:
Early on in my career, I once replied to a customer who reached out about a website outage with the following response:
“I’m so sorry, it looks like our website crashed earlier today. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s back up and running.”
I received some very direct feedback that this was not the best way to respond to a customer who was upset about the website outage, as using the term “crashed” could make the customer start to distrust the stability of our product.
Instead, I should have said something like the following:
“I’m so sorry that you’re experiencing this, thank you for letting me know. Let me quickly connect with the right people and see what might be going on. I’ll follow up as soon as I know more.”
This response is more neutral but still includes an apology for the overall experience as well as a promise to find a solution and follow back up with them.
Practicing professional empathy is a delicate balance. While you never want to be condescending to customers, interrupt them, or talk down to them, you also need to make sure that you don’t fan the flames of their frustrations.
When practicing professional empathy you want to be careful to not engage in negative talk about your company, its employees, or your product. Let’s look at an example of how professional empathy can be done the right way versus the wrong way.
The situation: A customer calls in about a website outage or product bug.
The wrong way to empathize with the upset customer:
“I’m so sorry, I would be furious about this too if I were you. It’s really unacceptable for our product to be down again, I’m sure this is interrupting your workflow.”
The right way to empathize with an upset customer:
“I understand this must be frustrating for you, I apologize that this is happening. Let me see what’s going on.”
In the “wrong way” example, projecting that the customer’s workflow is being interrupted and that they should be furious is not a good idea. If the customer doesn’t mention a complaint or specific concern, we definitely don’t want to give them a specific concern to be upset about.
Pro tip: You might be tempted to try to relate to the customer’s frustration by saying how you would feel, but steer clear of doing that. Focus on the fact that you hear them, you understand their needs, and you’re committed to helping them find a solution. Staying solution-oriented is an easy way to keep your professional empathy in check.
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7. Meet your customer where they’re at.
While not everyone wants to pick up the phone and call support, they still often want to speak to a human. By offering multiple ways to “talk” to your customers, you’re able to meet them where they’re at on their preferred communication channel.
As Jeremy Boudinet, the VP of growth at Textla, told me, “At Textla, we’ve found that communicating with new Textla users over the phone should include texting as well as calling. We call every new platform signup first and if they don’t answer, we leave a voicemail, then we text them. A surprising number of customers end up texting us back instead of calling us back and from there, we answer their questions and troubleshoot their issues via text.”
I love Boudinet’s approach here, as I’ve personally used chat support from companies like Ulta and have been pleasantly surprised with the experience. I like how Ulta’s text chat allows me to have the conversation on the go and that I can respond at my convenience.
As a support rep, it’s important to be flexible with the channels you’re able to support customers on. When you’re in the middle of a phone call, you can offer your customers the option of hopping onto a Zoom call, connecting via a chatbot, or continuing the conversation via text. (Text can be especially helpful if a customer needs to upload photos, such as for a return request).
By offering a variety of methods and channels to connect with you, your customers will feel more comfortable and confident in reaching out to get support.
Boudinet reiterated this, saying, “It’s important to meet your customers on the communication channel they prefer, whether that’s Zoom, a phone call, email, online chat, or text."
8. Ask before putting someone on hold or transferring a call.
I’ll be honest — I hate waiting around when I’m trying to solve an issue that is urgent to me. The only thing worse than a long wait time is being put on hold to then only get disconnected.
If you’re talking to a customer and find that you need to put them on hold or transfer them to someone else, always ask for their permission first. Be clear and up front about why you need to put them on hold or transfer them so that they know you’re actively helping them get to a resolution.
Some of the best interactions I’ve had with customer service reps included the rep overcommunicating with me, including them putting me on hold but popping back in from time to time to say, “I’m still here, we’re working on it!” I personally think this is a nice touch, and it reassures me that my call didn’t disappear into the ether.
Keeping your customers in the loop lets them know that you’re working on getting them closer to a resolution and will hopefully help them feel more content about needing to wait.
Pro tip: You can ask to put someone on hold by saying, “May I place you on [a brief] hold for a moment while I look into this for you? Thank you for your patience.”
Or if you need to transfer the call to another agent, you can say, “May I place you on hold briefly while I transfer your call to a colleague who can better assist you with this issue? Thank you for your understanding.”
9. Be honest if you don’t know the answer.
Let’s be honest — you won’t always know the answer to a customer’s question (or you may not have the authority to grant the resolution they need). When this occurs, it’s okay to be honest with your customer.
Being transparent about not knowing the answer will always be better than giving them the wrong information. Giving customers the wrong information or false promises tends to make an even bigger mess and leave them frustrated with their experience with your company.
I have been in plenty of situations where I couldn’t answer my customers’ questions at the moment and needed to loop in someone else with different expertise. I always choose to be honest with my customer and say something like, “Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to that, but let’s find someone who does and can help us.”
When customers know you’re actively working to find them the answer they need, they’re often understanding about not getting an immediate answer from you.
Customers don’t typically expect you to have all the solutions at hand, but they will expect you to be transparent.
Pro tip: If you’re not sure how to solve a problem a customer is having, you can either transfer the call to a specialist on your team who might have a solution or open a ticket for the customer and assure them that you’ll try your best internally to help them with their issue.
If possible, provide a timeframe within which you’ll do this and keep in touch with the customer about your progress.
10. Close out your calls with next steps.
If your call requires follow up or additional action items, you should always make sure to clearly communicate the next steps to the customer.
This might look like you letting them know that you’ve reached out to a technical specialist on their behalf, and then giving them an estimated timeframe of when they can expect to hear back.
Or, if you’re scheduling a follow-up call, let them know that you’ll be doing that and then follow up on it quickly. Customers want to know that you’re in their corner and you are actively working towards finding them a resolution, so wrap up your call by communicating what you’ll be doing to keep progress moving on their situation (and be sure to follow through on it).
Pro tip: If you use AI call recording software that automatically provides email follow-up and can provide you with action items, try using action-oriented keywords like “connect, follow up, send, schedule,” etc. This helps the software identify what you said you’d take ownership for and tools like Gong can provide you with your next steps and action items afterwards to keep you on track.
I love using Gong to draft my follow up emails to customers since it automatically outlines the relevant follow up items and it lists the responsible party for each action item.
Customer Service Phone Etiquette Challenges
While we all hope it never happens, sometimes you get on a call and have to immediately try to repair the relationship with that customer.
When this happens, phone etiquette is more important than ever, as these situations can be delicate and stressful for all parties involved.
To help you make sure you’re prepared for these types of interactions, I’ve listed a few challenges that customer reps commonly face and how to best handle them (including a few expert insights).
1. The customer is asking you to do something that you can’t.
When a customer thinks you can do everything for them, it’s a great testament to the excellent service you’ve provided! However, the reality is that some things your customers are asking for could require additional expertise, leadership-level approval, or may even be against company policy altogether.
In these cases, it’s important to set expectations with the customer up front.
If the customer is asking you for something that’s against company policy, providing the customer with written documentation that outlines your policy can help “back up” your decision as well as answer any additional questions that the customer may have about the issue.
I suggest keeping any relevant knowledge base articles bookmarked that apply to commonly asked questions pertaining to company policies, like refunds for example.
If the customer is asking you to fix something immediately for them but it requires additional research or even specialized technical support, be honest that you need to call on someone with more expertise. If possible, try to transfer them to the right person to keep their case moving forward.
Kellen Brown, customer service specialist at Textla, told me he is quick to let customers know when they need to “talk to someone smarter than him” in order to get a resolution.
Brown told me, “I’ll often tell a customer something like, ‘I’m going to need to connect you with someone who has more technical expertise than I do to help resolve this. Before I do that, let me make sure I’ve heard you correctly and have all the details I need…’ and then I repeat their situation back to them.”
This sort of candor goes a long way with customers, as it lets them know you’re listening and taking notes on the details of their ask. It also tells customers that you’re self-aware enough to know when you need to move them “up the chain” towards more specialized support.
2. The customer insists on staying on the phone until their problem is resolved.
Your customer likely cares a lot about resolving the issue they called in for, and they may even be willing to stay on the phone until they get their desired resolution. While I hope these situations are rare, they can happen.
Having a customer insist on staying on the phone can be a stressful situation for reps who may not be able to perform specific actions or have the right permissions to grant the customer’s request. Oftentimes, asking the right questions or listening for certain cues can potentially help you keep the conversation moving.
Marissa Ackerman, director of customer success at Pet Loyalty, told me that the details matter when addressing customer problems like this. “Listen for key words that may help you ask clarifying questions and get you closer to a solution. For example, if a customer calls in complaining about a bug in your product, listen to how they describe what they’re experiencing and ask follow up questions.”
By paying attention to the details of what a customer is describing, Ackerman explained that you can better understand if what they are describing is actually expected behavior or user-error, both of which you could help resolve in real-time with a walk-through or troubleshooting session.
If the context clues lead you to believe the issue is, in fact, a bug, you can then confirm with the customer that you’ll need to escalate this to an engineer or technical expert. “At that point, customers are often reassured that their concern is getting routed to the right place, even if it does require them to hang up the phone,” Ackerman explained.
If you can’t defuse or immediately resolve the situation, the next best step is to initiate a follow-up plan. Here’s how to do it:
- Let the customer know that in order to get them a resolution, you need to take a few additional steps, like looking into the issue further or reaching out to a technical expert, a manager, etc., who can help you.
- Confirm with the customer how they’d like you to follow up with them and give them an approximate timeframe of when you intend to do so.
- Gently make it clear that it’s in the customer’s best interest to hang up the phone and follow up at a later time.
- If that’s not possible, contact your manager immediately to intervene in the situation.
Pro tip: I’ve found that when I provide a little extra detail as to why I need to hang up with a customer, it can sometimes help to diffuse the situation. For example, if I know that I need to reach out to an engineer to get technical assistance, I may give that bit of detail to the customer so they understand why I need to hang up.
I might say something like, “Okay I’ve made detailed notes on what you’re experiencing and I was able to recreate the issue myself. What I need to do next is connect with my engineering lead and walk them through my findings. I’m going to try to get in front of them today, but I’ll need to hang up with you so I can start that conversation with them.”
3. The customer is demanding to speak with a manager.
We’ve all been there — a customer thinks that demanding to speak to a manager is going to solve their case more quickly. And honestly, I can relate — I’ve been a frustrated customer before who doesn’t want to rehash my issue with someone who doesn’t have the clearance to help me.
As difficult as this situation can be, it’s best to try to handle the case on your own and avoid transferring the conversation to your manager. You of course want to de-escalate the situation if the customer is upset, and let them know that you’re here to help them and are committed to working on finding them a resolution.
If you really need help or guidance at the moment, I suggest asking your manager for advice (either by putting the customer on hold or using an internal messaging tool on the side).
I typically see these scenarios arise because of one of two things:
Situation #1. The customer is asking to speak to a manager because they’re unhappy with a company policy or the outcome of the conversation with you.
In this scenario, it’s okay to gently but firmly reassure them that you’re the best person to help them. Let them know that you’re authorized to make the decision that you made, and kindly let them know that they won’t receive a different outcome by speaking with anyone else at your company.
This is another place where referencing a company policy can be helpful to reinforce the resolution you provided.
Situation #2. The customer is asking to talk to your manager because they aren’t getting a resolution or things aren’t moving quickly enough for them.
In this scenario, I suggest reassuring the customer that you’re committed to helping them and then outline the steps you’re going to take to assist them. If the customer has called in before, look back on previous interactions to see where they left off with someone else on your team.
If they’ve called before, be sure to do the following to avoid extra frustration:
- Read through the details of their previous interaction and avoid asking them repeat questions.
- Find out what the next steps were from the last interaction and immediately jump into action to keep their issue moving along.
In either situation, if all of the above doesn’t work, Ackerman suggests trying to connect the customer with a manager at a later date. “If a customer insists on speaking to a manager, try to find another date and time to connect them instead of routing them right away. Ask the customer for their upcoming availability, then make sure you have all the details to adequately relay the issue to your manager, including why they insisted on speaking to someone higher-up.”
Ackerman pointed out to me that she sometimes uses this approach to buy herself more time to dig into the issue herself. She said, “After I hang up, I typically try to spend a little time myself seeing if I can resolve the issue on my own. I may loop in other stakeholders or reach out to an SME to see if I can at least find a temporary solution while we work on a permanent one.”
If none of the above works and the customer is still irate, ask your manager if you can connect them directly with the customer.
Pro tip: Ask your leadership team what their stance is on getting involved in this way. Ask them what the threshold is for transferring a customer to your manager right away versus telling a customer that someone will follow up with them at a later time.
4. The customer doesn’t understand your explanation.
While picking up the phone is a great way for customers to immediately receive support, it’s definitely easier to support customers over the phone when their issues are easy to fix. When a customer’s issue is complex or nuanced, it can be harder to help solve the issue over the phone.
Since the customer can’t see what you’re looking at or access links and resources from you in real time, it can be harder to stay on the same page during the troubleshooting process.
Because of this, customers can become confused about how you explain the problem at hand or the steps you’re recommending as a resolution.
Brown told me that when customers become confused or need further explanation, he often tries to use analogies that not only fit his company’s product but also the industry. “Customers love when we can speak their language, so I try to use relevant analogies and industry terms when I’m describing something somewhat complicated to them.”
Another hurdle that support reps face is explaining complex troubleshooting steps over the phone. When you’re troubleshooting complex issues with a customer, I highly suggest delivering your troubleshooting guidance in a step-by-step format.
Here are a few tips on how to do this successfully:
- Stay away from in-depth explanations (unless the customer asks for one).
- Tell the customer exactly what to do, one step at a time.
- Be sure to pause and confirm they’ve completed the current step before moving on to the next one.
- Tell them what they should expect to see or experience at each stage so they can feel confident that they’re following your instructions properly.
- Ask them what they’re seeing to make sure they’re on the right track.
I also recommend leveraging customer service tools that can help clarify your explanation. Tools that allow you to screenshare or offer a virtual assistant enable you to give more hands-on support to guide customers through each step of the troubleshooting process.
If you don’t have access to these types of tools, there are plenty of free options available for your team. Check out this complete list of free help desk software that your team can use for its troubleshooting efforts.
Pro tip: For commonly asked questions or frequent troubleshooting scenarios, I strongly recommend including video walkthroughs as part of your knowledge base articles so that you can easily send customers a visual walkthrough when needed. This helps customers who prefer visual guidance or are less tech savvy. Free or low-cost video tools like Vidyard or Loom are a great option for this.
5. The customer is keeping you on the phone for too long.
While everyone’s time is precious, I know first-hand that a support rep with a daily quota and service SLAs is especially pressed for time. While you, of course, want to deliver an excellent and thoughtful experience to your customers, you can’t afford to get bogged down with lengthy calls.
Meeting your customer’s needs as well as your own career goals becomes a delicate balance when you’re trying to give each customer personalized attention while also being mindful of how long you’re spending on each call.
If you hit a dead end or are no longer making any real progress with the customer, let them know that you’ll need to follow up with them in order to get them a quicker resolution. Explain to the customer why you need to follow up with them and give them a timeline of when they can expect to hear from you.
This not only helps you reach your daily goals but will proactively demonstrate that you’re being mindful of the customer’s time.
Pro tip: If you’re not already using AI tools in your daily role, I highly suggest leveraging them to get some time back on your calls. Support desk software with built-in AI tools can offer things like relevant suggestions, recommendations, and knowledge base articles during customer interactions to help reps find what they need more quickly.
Some tools will even summarize a response for you when you input a question, pulling from your company’s knowledge base articles or even dev docs. I’ve used this in my daily work to help me provide relevant resources to customers who have more technical questions.
6. The customer asks for a refund or compensation.
If a customer is frustrated with their problem or if you’re unable to find a solution for them in time, the customer might demand a refund or compensation due to their dissatisfaction with your product or service.
When a customer asks you for a refund or to compensate them, I usually try to see if I can fix the customer’s issue and potentially turn their experience around. Express your understanding of their frustration and let them know that you’d love the opportunity to make it right for them. Hopefully, they’ll accept your offer to try and resolve it, and then you can open a ticket and start working on a solution.
If the customer insists on getting a refund/compensation, it’s important to lean on your company’s refund or compensation policy before moving forward.
Here are a few important considerations:
- First, do you have the right permission to authorize refunds or will you need approval?
- Verify the customer’s eligibility for a refund/compensation and offer alternatives if a refund isn’t possible.
- Clearly articulate your company’s refund policy and if necessary, have a link handy to the company refund policy in case you need to share it with a customer.
- If the customer is eligible for a refund, give them a timeframe within which you’ll process it and ensure you follow up promptly with any necessary actions, such as issuing the refund or sending a replacement product.
Brown told me that in situations like these, it’s critical for support reps to understand their department and its function thoroughly, which includes policy adherence and limitations. “When you understand your department thoroughly, you know what you can and can’t deliver on, and you should never promise something you can’t deliver.”
He went on to explain that when you understand your department’s limitations, you can confidently deliver next steps, like in this case an approval or denial for a refund.
Exceed your customers’ expectations with a great phone interaction.
The digital landscape might be ever-changing, but the concepts listed in this article are evergreen and can be applied to almost any support channel. When you follow these 10 essential rules of phone etiquette, you create an exceptional support experience that builds trust and loyalty with your customer base.
By asking curious questions, paying attention to the details, and being transparent with your customers, you’ll be better equipped to turn challenging conversations into customer-centric interactions.
Editor's note: This article was originally published in July 2020 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.
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