Most of us use the telephone several times a day to talk with friends or make social arrangements(安排). These calls are usually quite easy and require little planning.
Using the telephone for business purpose is different. In any organization the person on the telephone represents the company and gives an impression of the firm to the outside world.
If you want to ensure good public relations, you need to master effective telephone techniques.
You should try to give an impression of an efficient, friendly, progressive company eager to give good service.
Before calling
Choose the right time. Consider the cost, urgency and convenience. When calling overseas, you need to consider the time difference.
Check the number. A great deal of money is wasted each year on dialing wrong numbers.
Plan your call. Make a list of points and questions to be raised.
Be prepared. Gather any files, papers or information that may be needed during the call. It is unprofessional to have to say “Hold on while I look for that.”
If you have to ask a caller to hold on, keep going back and assuring him/her that you will be as quick as possible.
Avoid interruptions. Call at a time when you are unlikely to be distracted(分心).
During the call
Be courteous, polite. Make time for suitable greetings like “How are you today, Jim?” and “Did you enjoy your holiday”?
Put a smile in your voice. Remember, your caller can not see you, so use intonation to good effect and try to sound confident, decisive, helpful, and interested.
Check your notes. Look back at your notes to ensure that you have covered everything and quote figures and other data correctly.
Get feedback. Make sure the caller understands the message correctly, especially deadlines and actions that are involved.
Be courteous. Finish by thanking the caller for his or her time and trouble.
After the call
Make notes. Let it become a habit to make notes of the call and place them in an appropriate file.
Take actions. If you need to send a letter of confirmation or inform someone in your organization about any details of the call, do it immediately so that you do not forget important points.This passage is mainly about _____.
| A．how to become a dependable company |
| B．how to ensure public relations |
| C．some service a company should have |
| D．some telephone techniques for business purpose |
Before calling, you have to _____.
| A．stay at your company only |
| B．learn important data and figures by heart |
| C．get things ready for the communication |
| D．choose the right time and place |
During the call, it is unsuitable to _____.
| A．be heard in low spirits | B．be decisive |
| C．check your notes | D．get feedback |
What does the underlined word “courteous” in the passage mean?
| A．Polite. | B．Active. | C．Effective. | D．Correct. |
A traveller was staying in an Egyptian village. One day, she held up her camera to take pictures of the children. Suddenly the young ones began to shout at her. The traveller's face turned red and she apologized to the head for what she was doing, and told him she had forgotten that people in some places believed a person would lose his soul(灵魂) if his picture was taken. She explained to him the operation of a camera for a long time. Several times the head tried to say something, but he couldn't. When she believed that the head didn't fear any longer, the traveller then let him speak. With a smile, he said, "The children were trying to tell you that you forgot to take off the lens(镜头) cap!" The children shouted when the traveller was taking pictures of them because _______.
| A．they didn't want to stop playing |
| B．the traveller forgot to take off the cap on her head |
| C．they didn't want to have their pictures taken |
| D．the traveller was not doing well with her camera |
The traveller explained how to use a camera to the head because _______.
| A．the head was very interested in her camera |
| B．the head wanted to learn to take pictures |
| C．she was afraid of the head |
| D．she wanted the head not to worry about what she was doing |
The traveller made an apology to the head because _______.
| A．she thought it was not right to take people's pictures without telling them beforehand(事先) |
| B．the children would lose their souls |
| C．she had stayed in the village too long |
| D．she didn't take a picture of the head first |
Which of the following is NOT right?
| A．The traveller knew something about people in some countries. |
| B．The children wouldn't mind if the traveller took pictures of them. |
| C．The head was afraid that the traveller's camera would hurt the children. |
| D．The traveller didn't understand why the children shouted. |
The United States economy has dipped into economic recession (经济衰退). This caused discomfort and hardship in every level of society; but for many of the nation’s poor, discomfort and hardship turned into misery (苦难).
An increase in homelessness is probably the worst result of a nation’s financial disaster. About 3 million Americans were homeless because of a lack of affordable housing. Experts suggest that a family should spend no more than 30 percent of its income on housing. In fact, in some families housing costs make up 50 percent or more. An unexpected event, such as losing work or illness, can quickly push a family into homelessness.
An article in Time magazine tells a story of one such family. A young couple and their three children rented a two-bedroom apartment for about $350 a month. They could hardly go on with the husband’s $920-a-month take-home pay; so when their rent was raised to $500 a month, they could no longer make ends meet.
Another woman was found dead on a street in Washington D.C., the capital, and she died at a bus-stop across the street from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
People become homeless for different reasons. Some may not be able to pay for housing, because they have lost their job and cannot find another place they can afford. Others have mental diseases, or are addicted to drugs or alcohol, many of whom do not live with their family. And what’s more, there are not enough centers for shelter as the government doesn’t pay enough attention to this social problem.
People are making efforts to solve the problem. However, it will not be easy, because it is a personal and economical problem as well as a social problem.The passage is mainly about __________ in the US.
| A．ways of solving economic problems |
| B．homeless people being taken good care of |
| C．different reasons for economic recession |
| D．economic recession leading to social problems |
In the passage the author supported his view by __________.
| A．presenting specific figures | B．giving examples |
| C．explaining in details | D．discussing different opinions |
One main result that economic recession has led to is __________
| A．an increase of living costs | B．more and more deaths |
| C．an increase of homeless people | D．less centers for poor people |
How many reasons why people become homeless are listed in the passage?
| A．2. | B．3. | C．4. | D．5. |
Joseph Rudyard Kipling, who enjoyed early success with his poems, was born on 30 December 1865 in Bombay, India. Some of Kipling’s earliest and fondest memories are of his and sister Alice’s trips to the fruit market with their woman servant, or walking with his parents alongside the sea at night.
The beautiful days were to end when in 1871 Rudyard and Alice were sent to school in Southsea, England, to live with Captain Holloway and his wife. She ruled the boarding house with punishment and Kipling was often beaten by her and her son. “Then the old Captain died, and I was sorry, for he was the only person in that house as far as I can remember who ever threw me a kind word.” So he wrote in his later books. Kipling soon learned to read and found comfort in literature and poetry.
Freedom from the Holloway household was gained when he spent one month a year in London with his mother’s kind sister Aunt Georgie and her husband, pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne Jones and their children. Those months of December were a really paradise to Kipling.
In 1877 Kipling’s mother returned to England and collected him so that he could attend the United Services College in Devon. Now he was able to settle into the life of a student and in his second year started writing his own Schoolboy Lyric poems printed by his parents. In 1878 his father took him to the Paris Exhibition where he was allowed to wander freely and gained much appreciation for French culture which he wrote about in “Souvenirs of France”. Kipling first left his parents in __________.
| A．1865 | B．1871 | C．1877 | D．1878 |
Kipling fell in love with literature and poetry __________.
| A．before the old Holloway died |
| B．when he was a little boy with his parents |
| C．when he attended the United Services College |
| D．when he was in school, living with the Holloways |
From the underlined sentence in paragraph 3 we learn that __________.
| A．he felt free and happy with his aunt’s family |
| B．he felt terrible when he stayed with the old Captain |
| C．the death of the old captain influenced him a lot |
| D．the days at his aunt’s helped him become a successful poet |
When Regina Mary' parents refused to let her get a horse ,the smart 15-year-olddidn’t sit in her room and complain. Instead she turned to a cow called Luna to make her riding dreams come true.
Hours of training ,and tons of treats later, the results are impressive: not only do the two regularly go on long rides through the southern German countryside, they can even do some difficult jumps successfully. Regina joked while sitting on her brown-and-white companion: “It’s unbelievable really , She thinks she’s a horse.”
The pairs unlikely friendship started about two years ago, shortly after Luna was born on the Mayer’s farm. They
started off with walks in the woods. Then Mayer slowly got her cow more adapted to human contact and riding equipment.
About six months later, it was time to see how Luna would respond to a rider on her back in a competition for horses. Mayer sat in the saddle(马鞍),and all went as planned. “She was really well behaved and walked normally, but after a couple of meters, she wanted to get me off her back! You could see that she got a bit peeved.” said Mayer.
Luna and Mayer are now soul mates, spending most afternoons together once the teen—who dreams of becoming a nurse one day—come home from school. The underlined word “peeved” in paragraph 4 probably means ________.
| A．excited | B．sorry | C．angry | D．puzzled |
Regina’s plan is to be ________ in the future.
| A．an animal trainer | B．a horse rider | C．a farmer | D．a nurse |
The passage mainly talks about ________.
| A．a cow performing in a horse competition |
| B．a German girl training a cow successfully |
| C．the way of gaining friendship from a cow |
| D．the efforts of a cow to adapt to riding equipment |
How can you build more word-of-mouth advertising (口碑广告)? In other words, why would your customers want to talk to their friends about their experience of doing business with you?
When you perform your service or deliver your product competently (出色地), you are just doing what the customer expects. In order to increase the number of the customers who want to share their good experience with their friends, you must make your service impressive, going beyond what is expected.
Recently my daughter Dawn and I had lunch with my team members at the Campbell House. The food and service were truly excellent. My daughter asked for her leftovers (剩菜) to be packed. They were returned to her in aluminum foil (铝箔) shaped like a swan(天鹅). Guess what she talked about when she got home? How much more do you think it cost the Campbell House to produce that “Wow!” experience? Answer —not a cent!
Disneyland should be an inspiration to us all in providing a “Wow!” experience. What do people talk to their friends about when they come home? “You should have seen how clean that park was! With all of the people there, it’s unbelievable! There’s not even a gum wrapper on the ground!” Walt Disney understood that cleanliness is marketing. According to the passage, customers would like to share their good experience with their friends if ______.
| A．what they need is provided on time |
| B．the price of the service is low enough |
| C．the service is better than they expected |
| D．the after-sale service is good enough |
How did Dawn feel the moment she saw her packed leftovers?
| A．Disappointed and angry. | B．Excited and crazy. |
| C．Worried and unhappy. | D．Surprised and pleased. |
By saying “Answer — not a cent!” the author seems to believe that ______.
| A．it is always possible to satisfy all of the customers |
| B．sometimes it is easy to provide a good experience |
| C．most customers are easy to do business with |
| D．the service should be as cheap as possible |
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