If you work on the phone, then you know how important to the big boss it is to quickly solve problems and speed the customer along. For the company it all comes down to efficiency. Handling calls quickly allows you to take more calls in any given shift. In turn you are helping more customers. To the employee a shorter call is usually an easier call. It really is a win-win situation. While you are getting used to applying techniques to increase your efficiency, you may start to get exhausted. Don’t worry because a short while taking calls this way, it will even feel much better than your previous method.

Before we begin, I would just like to state one thing. Becoming very productive is not the only learning to enhance one feature. You must discover all of the variables in your job to determine how to fine tune each. Slightly more effort or enhancement on each will definitely show improvement overall.

The first thing to understand is that once you build rapport with a customer, it is very easy to do just about anything. Learning to build this bond early on is a valuable tool when communicating. I have already explained a technique on how to build rapport in How to Communicate with Customers and I will explain more about it in the future. For now our main concern is productivity.

After you have mastered or at least dabbled in building rapport, the next step is simple. All companies use computers to access their customer databases. Even though most are crude, these programs do have numerous shortcuts and quick ways around basic routines. For example, Ctrl + (some key) will usually perform some function in most programs. Learning these, “hotkeys,” is essential to building your efficiency. It might seem difficult at first and it does take time to catch on if you have never used Hotkeys, but it is well worth integrating into your process.

The next step is learning to multi-task. Once again most companies don’t hire the brightest programmers in the world. This leads to database programs that look pretty, but run very slow in comparison to their predecessors. This enhancement only works if you have to do multiple tasks in order or at the same time. You can usually switch programs and utilize your time spent waiting to complete some other task. This only shaves a few seconds off the over all process, but can be fine tuned to save much more time overall.

The last step is putting it all together. It might be easiest to focus on one skill at a time. Gradually over the course of a week or so, add to it. In time it will feel like second nature, and you will apply these techniques without even actively realizing that you are.