How to Take a Phone Message in English

There are a lot of books about telephone English.  A lot of class time is spent on the topic as well.  The standard telephone English lesson says that you should take a message like this:

“I’m sorry, Mr. Smith is not available right now.  May I take a message?”

Or something like that.  But the danger of offering to take a message is that the caller might give you a difficult message!  Like this:

“Yes, thank you very much, could you please tell Mr. Smith that something came up and I’ll be unable to attend the meeting on next Tuesday.  Is there any way we could maybe push it back to the 18’th or some other time after that?  I’ll be available if it’s BEFORE 2 o’clock.  Unfortunately I’ll be busy after 2, so it’s better if we plan for earlier.  Thank you.”

Could you catch all of that over the telephone at native speed?  As you can see, sometimes taking a message is the wrong thing to do.  Instead, just offer to have Mr. Smith call them back, like this:

“I’m sorry, Mr. Smith is not available right now.  May I have him call you back?”

This way, all you have to do is get their name and number, and you’re done!