Telephone Assignment

Instructions: To gain practice sounding professional over the phone, complete the following task.

• Your voicemail should begin with a greeting and an introduction of yourself (a full introduction includes your name and your job title, the company you work for and the time of your call)

• The content of your message should be delivering bad news to a client of the company you work for (which may be the same company you worked for during the email assignment. Perhaps you are calling on behalf of your boss, the same boss you used for your email assignment), the company is related in accounting department.

• Your voicemail should be 20-30 seconds in duration

• You are allowed to use contractions in formal speech (just not in formal writing)

• Your message should end with next steps (follow up information: a number to call you back at, perhaps give them the option to email you back and leave an address, the hours your office is open, perhaps invite them to a meeting where the problem will be discussed further)

o Remember that your message should be looking toward the future

• Remember that your message is bad news, so your tone should be professional while confident (be sure to apologize although it might not have been your fault)