Business Etiquette 礼节美语 第027讲

陈豪在北京的ABC美国公司工作，他的美国同事Amy来找他谈事儿。

(Office ambience)

A：Hi Chen Hao, have you got a minute?

C：Amy, 刚才你过来的时候，我正在电话上。

A：It's not polite to hang around when someone is the phone so I decided¹ to come back.

C：嗨，别提了。我刚才一直在电话上等。想挂，可是好不容易才打通，挂了又得从头来，我就在那儿傻等着，烦死了。

A：I know what you mean. Putting callers on hold for more than thirty seconds is bad for customer relations.

C：半分钟，别说半分钟；我刚才足足等了半小时。不过，Amy, 说实话，我让别人等的时候，有时候也容易把时间忘了。What can I do?

A：Watch the clock. Time passes quickly for the person who is busy with other callers or issues, but for the person on hold, time creeps by.

C：就是这么回事。在电话上等，确实觉得时间过得特别慢，所以越等越不耐烦。

A：Since your job doesn't involve answering other people's calls, I would guess that your callers are waiting for you to look up information while they hold.

C：没错，一般情况下，我都会让客户在电话上等着别挂，我马上设法帮他们解决问题。

A：There is a difference in holding for someone to answer the phone and holding for someone to look up information for you.

C：在线上等别人接你的电话和等别人去帮你查资料有什么不一样呢？

A：If you ask people to hold while you are looking up information or trying to help them in some way, they are willing to wait.

C：我怎么还是不明白？

A：People are happy to wait while you work on their behalf.

C：噢，他们知道对方是在为自己解决问题，所以等得心甘情愿。那些等着别人接听电话的人呢？

A：When you take your time getting to the call, the caller starts to imagine all sorts of scenarios².

C：没错，我就经常怀疑对方是把我给忘了。

A：The caller may suspect you don't think the caller is important.

C：还有呢？

A：Maybe you don't value the caller's time?

C：对呀，在线上等电话是越等越急，越急就容易胡思乱想。

A：Yes, and the result is that your caller is pretty annoyed when you finally answer the phone.

C：没错，那客户肯定很不高兴，觉得我没有礼貌。

A：Exactly. So if you want to avoid making people feel unimportant³ or ignored, pick up your phone as soon as you know you have a caller waiting.

C：如果没办法马上接电话，我通常都会让秘书请客户决定，是在线上继续等，还是在电话信箱里留言。

A：Exactly, good business etiquette⁴ as usual is to be considerate of the other person.
 

1 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

2 scenarios   

n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本

参考例句：

• Further, graphite cores may be safer than non-graphite cores under some accident scenarios. 再者，根据一些事故解说，石墨堆芯可比非石墨堆芯更安全一些。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Again, scenarios should make it clear which modes are acceptable to users in various contexts. 同样，我们可以运用场景剧本来搞清楚在不同情境下哪些模式可被用户接受。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

3 unimportant   

adj.不重要的，无意义的

参考例句：

• Let's not quarrel about such unimportant matters.我们不要为这些小事争吵了。
• Money seems unimportant when sets beside the joys of family life.与天伦之乐相比，金钱显得微不足道。

4 etiquette   

n.礼仪，礼节；规矩

参考例句：

• The rules of etiquette are not so strict nowadays.如今的礼仪规则已不那么严格了。
• According to etiquette,you should stand up to meet a guest.按照礼节你应该站起来接待客人。