Your first phone call

It can be a bit nerve-wracking contacting a member for the first time. Follow the script below to make sure you feel confident having a friendly and professional call to get yourself started on the right foot.

Getting in touch

Once you have been matched with a member, you should call them within 48 hours. Before you do so, make sure you've checked the member's plan, and taken notice of:

The things they would like help with
Any information about the member's background or interests you can ask about!

Try and contact the member 3 times over the course of a week, and if you are not able to schedule a session as planned, indicate this on their request under 'Flag session disruption' and leave a note on their profile each time you call:

"Uncontactable": You cannot get through to the member. We will take over responsibility for contacting them.
"Inconsistent": The member insists on sessions on an ad hoc basis, rather than according to a regular schedule. We will prioritise you for future matches.
"Temporary pause": The member wishes to pause sessions for up to 2 months. Any longer than this, and we will close their request. We will prioritise you for future matches.

If after two weeks you have not scheduled a session with a member after being matched, and you have not assigned them one of the tags above, the member will be automatically rematched. So make sure you use the tags to keep us in the loop!

Call script

For phone calls, it can be useful to follow the four Cs to help keep your phone calls structured: Connection, Context, Commitment, Catapult. Here's a script we've put together, but feel free to put your own spin on it!

Note: Calls should always be made between standard working hours. That's 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

Connection (introduce yourself, get to know them)

Hi, this is [your name] calling from Lively! Am I speaking with/could I please speak with [member name]?
Hi [member name], how's your day going?

Context (why you're calling)

So, as I mentioned, I'm calling from Lively; just to give you some info, we're a not-for-profit organisation employing young people to provide an extra pair of hands to older community members and get to know each other.
I'm one of Lively's Helpers, and we were referred to you by [name of referring organisation/person] to give you a hand with [briefly outline what they've asked help with], is that right?
- The member may choose to provide you with some further detail over the phone.

Commitment (lock in a commitment to meet up)

Great! So, I can see that you've been booked in for a regular [2/3] hour session every [week/fortnight].
Currently I have time slots available at [outline the time slots when you are available to work]. Does one of those times work for you for a regular session?
- Sessions should be scheduled between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday, unless a member has specifically requested a time outside of that. As a general rule, we do not provide services on weekends or public holidays.
- Once you book in a time, this should be locked in and not shift from week to week.
Great, so that's booked in as our regular weekly/fortnightly session time.
And could I just confirm your address is [member's address]?

Catapult (outline next steps)

Great, so we're booked in at [date and time of session] for [length of session].
And so just to give you an idea of how the session runs:
- First up, we'll just need to sit down together so I can run through a few details of how we do things at Lively, because it might be a bit different from other providers.
- As part of that, I'll need to do a quick safety assessment of the spaces we'll be working in before we get going.
- I'll need to use the last five minutes of the session to make some notes about what we did together.
Just so you're aware, Lively's cancellation policy is that you'll be charged a fee if you cancel within 24 hours. Lively Helpers are only paid for the sessions delivered, so where possible if you can give me as much notice as possible for any cancellations, that would be really appreciated.
- You can get in touch with me directly if you need to cancel or reschedule, so can I give you my number so you can easily contact me?
- Provide them with your number. The cancellation fee should be listed under the partner information in their matching request, or they can talk to the referring partner.
Thanks [member name], I look forward to meeting you at [date and time of session]!

Add the session to your schedule so that the team knows it is booked in!

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