Make sure that you, your secretary and your staff know how to take good messages from phone calls. Use a specially designed phone message sheet to ensure that no vital information is lost. Listen carefully to the caller and find out what they really want before trying to answer them. Take full notes so that you can refer back to them and can initiate action from them. If you want your secretary to deal with calls for you, make sure that their note-taking skills have been learnt well.

Any action to be taken should be noted on the message sheet. If the person who has taken the message can deal with it (your secretary, a colleague, a member of your staff) they should be empowered to do so. You should only be given the sheet when action needs to be taken by you. Your secretary, of course, should list the messages daily and note any action that was taken and by whom, for your information.

Make sure that any message sheet you design or that your company provides is large enough to take all the information and contains enough room for the message and action information. You will not save time if you have to search for another piece of paper because the sheet is too small.

Put copies of the phone message pad where everyone can see them and will use them, for example next to every phone, including your own. Instruct everyone to use them.

If you want to be sure that messages are not mislaid, the telephone message sheet could be printed in a carbon block so that there is always a second copy. Once action has been taken both copies can be destroyed.

If your telephone messages keep getting lost use a carbon-copy pad. Throw the spare copies away once the pad has been used.

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