What is call screening?
- Call screening
- Call screening is finding out who is calling and what they want before the call reaches you, so you can decide whether to take it now, take a message, or send it elsewhere.
What call screening means in practice
Caller ID is the crudest form and it only answers who, and only when the number is presented.
Asking the caller is the useful form. Name, business, reason for calling, and then a decision.
It is distinct from blocking. Screening sorts calls you might want; blocking stops calls you definitely do not.
What people get wrong
Two callers, one question, two outcomes
Say you own a small print shop, and you've set one screening question, which asks what the call is about. At 10:05 a caller says he's Dan with Apex Payment Solutions, and he'd like to speak to the owner about your card processing rates. Your rule for sales approaches is to take a message and end politely. Dan gets thanked, his number gets logged, and your phone stays quiet.
At 10:20 another caller gets the same question. She says her name's Priya, you sent her a quote for 500 booklets last week, and she wants to go ahead. Your rule for anyone mentioning a quote or an order is an immediate transfer. Priya is talking to you about twelve seconds after she dialed. Both callers heard the same friendly question, and neither one knows a rule was applied.
Keeping to a ten-second budget
Every screening question costs the caller something like five to ten seconds. One question is invisible. Three questions before anyone helps is a wall, and the callers most likely to give up at a wall are new customers who owe you nothing yet.
So spend the budget carefully. Ask about the reason for the call, since that's what your rules run on, and let the name and number come out of the conversation. Think about who should skip the question entirely too. Your biggest accounts, your spouse and your kid's school shouldn't have to explain themselves, so ask any vendor whether recognized numbers can go straight through. Then read a week of screened calls and look for anyone who was sorted into the wrong pile. One misfiled customer a week is a sign the rule needs rewording, and the fix is usually a single added phrase.
How GreetKeeper handles it
The assistant asks who is calling and what about, then applies your rules: transfer now, take a message, or book without involving you at all.
Because it asks every caller the same questions, the record you get back is consistent rather than depending on who happened to answer.
Sales calls and cold approaches can be handled with their own rule, so they never reach your phone and still get a polite ending. Calls it screens out don't count toward your plan.
Call screening questions
Is screening rude?
Only when it feels like an obstacle. A single question about what the call concerns reads as helpful; an interrogation before anyone will talk reads as a wall.
Can it screen out sales calls?
It can apply your rule to calls that describe themselves as sales approaches. Determined callers work around any script, so treat it as a filter rather than a gate.
What about withheld numbers?
You cannot screen those on caller ID, only on what the caller says. Decide in advance whether a withheld number gets the same treatment as any other.
Related terms
Hear it take one of your calls
Two minutes, your own scenario, no card.