The telephone protocol

We know time is money. So if we think about effectiveness and profitability of cost/time of executives, we understand they can’t wait. Thus we’ll apply the protocol on the waiting phone calls. But, who waits to whom? It depends on the company, if it is public or private, the manner among colleagues. The formal procedure is:

Incoming call

The person who calls or his/her secretary ask us about our boss. We ask who is calling and what it is about. We tell our boss who is calling and what it is about. In case he/she accepts it, we put the call through to him/her.

If he/she is busy, on a meeting, or out of the office, we’ll write down to call back later.

Outgoing call

We ask for the person who wants to speak to our boss. If he/she is a lower or same category, we wait for they put us through to him/her directly and then we put him/her through to our boss.

If the person who our boss wants to speak to is a superior category, we ask for his/her secretary and we put him/her through to him/her secretary, thereby the addressee hasn’t to wait for us when his/her secretary put us through to him/her.

If he/she is busy, on a meeting or out of the office, we leave a message.