At work, from time to time I often have to call friends, unfamiliar or completely unfamiliar people or answer calls from them. And there is one not very convenient moment that I would like to discuss with you.
There are people whom I call about once every couple of months, so I have certain doubts about whether they remember me or not and whether they have my number recorded in the phone book. As a result, the first five to ten seconds have to be spent on the performance: 'Hello, this is Evgeny Vildyaev, the author, is it convenient for you to say?' At some point I noticed that I introduce myself even when I call my colleagues: 'Artem, hello, this is Zhenya, do you have a minute?' And I thought that it must be somehow strange, considering that they must have my number. Apparently, the desire to play it safe plays a role, you never know, maybe they walk with a test phone or suddenly contacts have not been tightened, etc.
I noticed that when I call my friends and acquaintances, I am not the only one who introduces myself. When they call me, the conversation also begins with 'hello, this is Sasha, I wanted to clarify this', that is, people intuitively assume that the interlocutor may not know who is calling him. But I thought about it only after I called Sergei Kuzmin a couple of times. At the beginning of a conversation, Sergei always greets or gives the name of the interlocutor, and it immediately becomes clear to him that his number has been determined and you can immediately go to the heart of the matter. It would seem such a trifle, but with a large number of calls, this behavior significantly saves time. For about a couple of weeks now, I myself have been doing this myself and I directly feel that it becomes much easier for subscribers at the other end to conduct a dialogue, so I recommend paying attention to such a beginning of a telephone conversation.