By Nancy Friedman, The Telephone Doctor; Customer Service Expert, Speaker, Founder and Chairman, Telephone Doctor Customer Service Training

Companies spend millions of dollars in advertising trying to get their phone to ring and when it does, potential sales can be lost in less than 10 seconds because of ineffective phone skills.

OUCH! That hurts.

I’ve been helping corporations around the world improve their communications for a long time and from the beginning, I’ve seen the same problem over and over.

Lack of training on the telephone, as well as in person; walking into the store and not be acknowledged. Sadly, it happens a lot.

People ask me all the time, “Nancy, where are people the nicest and where are people the rudest?”

Answer: People are people are people are people. From New York to California, Texas to Minneapolis. We’ve seen rude people in the South and, yes, nice people in NYC. It doesn’t matter where you’re FROM, it matters what you say and how you say it.

What I have also seen is ‘hit and miss’ training. Things like: Boss says, “Hey, Susie, help Mary; she’s new.” And so on down the line.

That’s ‘nice’ but it’s not training. Not effective. It’s not focused.

It might help a bit for a short time yes. But it’s not consistent and probably won’t change behavior if needed. And it usually is needed.

FACT: People who aren’t trained on the phone, or in person sales, will help you lose business. And then YES, all that money you spent on advertising is wasted. It happens EVERY DAY.