Phone Etiquette? Selfish Co-worker?

[user1234]

Hello,
I work for a small business and one of my co-workers has decided he is going to answer all of the incoming phone calls for the past two years. The kicker is that not only does he answer every phone call but he answers every phone in about 1/4 of a ring. His obvious intention is to take all of the incoming sales calls. While this is frustrating to a number of his co-workers I worry if this is hurting the business. Is there an etiquette for how many times a phone should ring before picking up a call? The owner could care less and actually sees it as sign of "being hungry" so the only method the rest of us have is to keep one hand on the phone and try to beat him to it. I honestly don't have much experience with dealing with such a selfish person so I was just curious if anyone had any ideas. Part of my point above being that while he has lost credibility with most of the other employees I don't know that there is going to be much support from the owner.

Thanks!

[nealrm]

I see nothing wrong with what he is doing. If he can truly handle all the incoming calls, then the sales department is overstaffed. If I take your post at face value, then I suggest you start looking for a different job. At some point the boss is going to realize that the sales are being done by one person and the rest are dead weight. What I suspect is that your post is more sore grapes than fact. You are being beaten out by a more aggressive salesman and don't like it. Again, I suggest that you find a different position. One where there is less competition.

Sorry, he's not doing anything wrong. Answering the phone promptly is good customer service. I suggest you watch and learn.

[Pack-Secure]

There is not limit to the amount of rings. I say the less the better. It sounds to me like there are too many sales people, as nealrm stated. I assume that you all work on commission, as it appears by this sales persons zealous. If this practice is cutting into your paycheck, then I would suggest looking for other employment. If you all are not on commission and this person is just trying to show off, I would assume he/she will tire of it eventually.

As an employer, I applaud our customer service people and sales people for being quick. Please note however, that I do mean quick, helpful and polite.

[billbenson]

Remember the caller isn't actually hearing your phone ring. If your coworker picks up the phone in a quarter of a ring, the caller may never have heard a ring which is always a point of confusion. Callers expect to hear a ring. Having said that, I'd say that two to three rings is a normal number to the caller. 4 or more and the caller may hang up. As a one man show, I get the full breadth of rings. I would say that a caller expects to be answered in two to three rings.

I don't agree with statements above that your coworker is doing nothing wrong. He is stealing orders from the rest of the sales team. He should pick up in a normal amount of time, say 2 rings.

If you are on the East Coast and a worker chooses to stay until 9 pm to get West Coast calls when everyone else has gone home, I applaud that. IMO your coworker is doing nothing more than cutting in line at the grocery store. It creates bad moral among employees and the best sales guy in the office may be missing out on opportunities to close deals that he never gets.

[MyITGuy]

I don't agree with statements above that your coworker is doing nothing wrong. He is stealing orders from the rest of the sales team. He should pick up in a normal amount of time, say 2 rings.

He's not stealing orders from the team if there is no policy in place and as a business owner I would see this person as someone who is eager to earn both him and I some business (As long as they are able to maintain the expectations, volume, politeness and etc...). I see this no different then a sales person at a car lot as the first person to greet the customer gets the sale...however you may note that allot of companies now have policies in place to rotate sales people to prevent the types of complaints the OP is generating.

If this is an issue then the business owner should put in a system of rotation. This can be done manually by stating who answers the phones on specific days/hours and rotating them out (As some days/hours may have higher volume), or systematically by moving to a phone system that supports queues and the person who is logged into the system with the most time in an idle state gets the call.

[huggytree]

your boss sets the rules....he knows whats going on.....youve mentioned it to him, so he knows your concern, yet he seems to like whats happening


either you accept it or quit.....since your not the boss those are your only 2 choices

i find this salesman interesting...im not sure if id like it or not...i do like go-getters, but not even letting it do a full ring is odd and 'could' be considered odd to customers

when i lose my cell phone i always take my wifes and dial the phone # to find it...it always rings atleast once on my wifes phone before my phone rings once....so your customers still may get a ring or 2 before he answers....a ring on the customers line is not the same as a ring on yours

[billbenson]

He's not stealing orders from the team if there is no policy in place and as a business owner I would see this person as someone who is eager to earn both him and I some business (As long as they are able to maintain the expectations, volume, politeness and etc...). I see this no different then a sales person at a car lot as the first person to greet the customer gets the sale...however you may note that allot of companies now have policies in place to rotate sales people to prevent the types of complaints the OP is generating.

If this is an issue then the business owner should put in a system of rotation. This can be done manually by stating who answers the phones on specific days/hours and rotating them out (As some days/hours may have higher volume), or systematically by moving to a phone system that supports queues and the person who is logged into the system with the most time in an idle state gets the call.

I see your point Jeff. And some managers try to cultivate this sort of cut throat environment. It also works for some product types.

From my experience, someone who would do this sort of thing probably is someone who would hang up on a customer the moment it's obvious they are not a prospect and would likely also go for the hard sell.

So as a salesman, you need to pick the work environment and product to match your personality.

The people that keep trying to sell me credit card processing services would fit well into this type of business.

So I guess we actually need to know more about the work environment from the OP.

[Pack-Secure]

Our phone system goes through a rotation before it reaches customer service: Such as press 1 for etc etc. By the time it reaches customer service, they are fully aware of what department they will be reaching. So for me as a business owner, I am happy when my reps answer quickly.

[AccountantSalary]

If you're not comfortable with company policy and how the boss handles it, it's time to look for a new job.

[BNB]

I require my staff answer the phone within 2 rings. If it's just 1 or 1/4 of a ring, even better.

Let's be real here, unless you are suggesting this guy has superhuman reflexes, than I think you are more than capable of grabbing a call before him from time to time.

[melanie]

As an answering service, we always aim to answer calls within two rings. Calls are usually answered much quicker than that. There is nothing wrong with answering a call quickly and as others have mentioned, the customer may hear one ring before it starts ringing on your phone. The etiquette you mention refers to how many rings is acceptable to leave the phone ringing, i.e. you really shouldn't leave a phone ringing more than 3 rings, I don't believe there is an etiquette for how many rings you should leave a phone to ring?

[Harold Mansfield]

The problem with this coworker is that there is no way that he can close every sale or have a rapor with every caller. No one is 100%. So you have to wonder how many leads he is also blowing.

Let's say he answers 200 calls and closes 8 deals. That 8 deals my be highest among the sales people, but what does that do to the close ratio of the floor? Is 4% a satisfactory close ratio?

The reason people have more than one salesperson is because they want a sales team. If you boss is fine with one person acting like a one man show then maybe you guys should leave and let him have it.

The easiest way to handle this is to set your inhouse telephony system to rotate the calls. Period. If you all depend on incoming calls to make a living and one person has decided to hog them all, then this is the only way.

I argue that he's probably not the best salesperson on the floor, he's just answering the most calls.

[nealrm]

The problem with this coworker is that there is no way that he can close every sale or have a rapor with every caller. No one is 100%. So you have to wonder how many leads he is also blowing.

Let's say he answers 200 calls and closes 8 deals. That 8 deals my be highest among the sales people, but what does that do to the close ratio of the floor? Is 4% a satisfactory close ratio?

The reason people have more than one salesperson is because they want a sales team. If you boss is fine with one person acting like a one man show then maybe you guys should leave and let him have it.

The easiest way to handle this is to set your inhouse telephony system to rotate the calls. Period. If you all depend on incoming calls to make a living and one person has decided to hog them all, then this is the only way.

I argue that he's probably not the best salesperson on the floor, he's just answering the most calls.

Sorry - but you have no information to base this on. You don't know the number of calls he is answering or his closure rate. If we take the initial post at face value, this is what we know:

The salesman has time to finish the call and before the next call comes in, he is in a position to answer it.
The owner of the company is happy with this salesman.
The person that made the initial post is unhappy that this salesman is faster at answering phone calls than he is.
Since the owner is happy with the salesman, either the salesman is doing a good job or the owner is doing a poor job. In both cases the solution is clear, find a different job.

In truth, the tone of the initial post was more sour grapes than anything else.

[Harold Mansfield]

Sorry - but you have no information to base this on. You don't know the number of calls he is answering or his closure rate. If we take the initial post at face value, this is what we know:

The salesman has time to finish the call and before the next call comes in, he is in a position to answer it.
The owner of the company is happy with this salesman.
The person that made the initial post is unhappy that this salesman is faster at answering phone calls than he is.

Since the owner is happy with the salesman, either the salesman is doing a good job or the owner is doing a poor job. In both cases the solution is clear, find a different job.

In truth, the tone of the initial post was more sour grapes than anything else.
Of course I don't . It was merely a hypothesis, hence "let's say". But having worked in a phone room, I know that more calls doesn't mean that you have a better close ratio, it just means that you are getting more calls. If you throw more calls at one person over another they are bound to close more just based on the number of chances they get to do so. That doesn't mean that this is the best use of resources. You could be wasting more leads than you are closing.

Yeah, the OP may have some sour grapes, but the person trying to keep his coworkers from all of the incoming calls is being a jerk.

If those were say, the Glengarry leads, maybe you just want your strong closers on them. But we are talking about incoming calls. I'm not saying the guy shouldn't be hungry, but I've been in this situation before and watched the people who do it blow sales that someone else may have been able to close. That's selfish. But then again, that's life in a phone room.

Where I worked, to prevent this and prevent salesmen from wasting leads in this way, the calls rotated. If you proved yourself with a higher close ratio you got an office and an assistant and then you were privvy to the "Glengarry" leads when they came in. But all of the people on floor got an equal shot because everyone was stronger in different areas. That's why they continue to work there.

That's why one person getting every call can be a bad thing. Unless this guy is just the best salesmen ever to work in a phone room and closes everybody, this doesn't sound like a good thing.

If I were the OP, I'd check the guy's closing ratio, compare it to the overall ratio of the floor, and if the floor is higher you have a case for either reinging this guy in because you can prove he's wasting leads, or asking for the calls to rotate. Forget being nice about it. When one person sticks thier chest out and declares that they are the best of the group at the expense of thier working relationships, they need to be able to back it up. If his close ratio is lower than the group, out his ass to the boss and bring him back down to earth. And then still shun him.

[nealrm]

but the person trying to keep his coworkers from all of the incoming calls is being a jerk.
I don't agree with that.

From my point of view, the OP is just less willing to work as hard as this salesman.


I'd check the guy's closing ratio, compare it to the overall ratio of the floor, ....
The owner should be doing this already for each of the salespeople.

[Harold Mansfield]

I don't agree with that.

From my point of view, the OP is just less willing to work as hard as this salesman.

I'm not so quick to make that assumption when the guy is answering the phone before one full ring. That's not normal. Most people aren't sitting with their hand on the phone all day trying to jump their co-workers. This is also a bad sales set up. If you can run a phone room with one person, why have the others? You also take the risk that he is "on" 100% of the time. No one is that good.

If the complaint was that he somehow always seems to get the best calls, I'd say sour grapes. This doesn't seem to be the case. It looks like one person is being selfish and that is not in the best interest of the company.

I've had this exact same thing happen before, and what I suggested is exactly how we handled it. My situation was a little more unethical as a few people were paying the telephony guys to route incoming calls (new leads) to their phones, and we were all getting routed calls from the dialer (old leads). So we had to bust their asses. They left us no choice.
I don't mind someone being better. I can learn from that. But I hate people that cheat and then claim superiority.

But as you said, the sales manager should be handling this.