We've all been in a situation where you either don't agree or don't understand something that has just been said. So, what do you do? Wait until the person has finished talking before asking or do you interrupt?
Although it is not polite to do so, interrupting happens all the time in both social and business situations. But there are ways in English to make it sound less direct and less rude.
In this online exercise you will learn different ways to and phrases for interrupting people and more importantly, different ways of dealing with interruptions in business English. First,read the below dialogue/conversation and then do the quiz/test at the end to learn how to both use the vocabulary and say/pronounce it perfectly.
Although the focus here is on business meetings, many of the phrases here can be used in other situations as well.
To learn phrases in English for clarifying and confirming things which have been said, do our online exercise on 'how to confirm and clarify information'
Click here to see more of our free online exercises on business meeting vocabulary
Read the following part of a department performance meeting where Steve and Jill are making recommendations to the customer service department for changes to be made in their department.
From the context, try to guess what the meaning of the words/phrases in bold are. Then do the quiz at the end to check if you are right.
Steve:'Over the last four weeks, myself and Jill have gone over the performance statistics for the customer service department, the response rates, closing down enquiries'
Fred:'Excuse me for interrupting, but who asked you to do this? I'm the Customer Service Manager and I wasn't aware that this was taking place.'
Steve:'It was the Sales and Service Director.
So, as I said we have looked at the different performance statistics and we have found that although the majority of teams are meeting their targets, they are doing it by manipulating the statistics rather than providing a good level of customer service.'
Fred:'Just a minute!, how can you say that? I haven't seen you down here reviewing my team!'
Steve:'Do you mind if I finish?
As I was just saying, our review has shown that the level of customer service isn't up to the appropriate standard. We came to this conclusion by monitoring a random selection of responses to customer emails and customer phone calls to the service desk.'
Sally:'Sorry to butt in, but may I just ask what the percentage of this random sample was?'
Steve:'Well, the sample covered the whole service desk and'
Jill:'If I can just come in here Steve. I was responsible for doing the monitoring. And over a period of two weeks, we monitored on average 5% of customer calls and 3% of emails.'
Sally:'To be honest I don't think that monitoring 5% of customer calls and 3% of emails gives a fair representation of the quality of service the customer service department is providing.'
Steve:'You may have a point there and it is something that we have thought about. But it's the standard random sample size we've used before.
So, as a result of our review we have come up with a number of recommendations that we feel should be implemented to the customer service department as soon as possible. The first of these is restructuring the teams to specialize on specific customer issues rather than on geographical areas, we'
Fred:'Hang on a minute! Have you thought about how long that will take and'
Jill:'I think you should let him finish!'
Steve:'Fred, let me come back to that later! As I was just saying,'
Fred:'I'm sorry, I don't think you have thought this through.'
Steve:'May I just finish! You'll have an opportunity to make any comments shortly.'
Match the words/phrases in bold from the above text to each of the definitions/descriptions below. Click on the "Check" button at the bottom of the quiz to check your answers.
When the answer is correct, two icons will appear below the answer. The "" icon contains extra information on the word/phrase. In the "" icon, you can listen to the pronunciation of the word/phrase.
Now that you understand the meaning of the words/phrases and when to use them, practise using them by creating your own sentences with them in English. Also click on the "" icon under each correct answer and listen how each is pronounced correctly.
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