The Complete Phone Script, Part Two: Get Back the Calls You’re Losing!

What to say when the call goes sideways: the four objections that come back at every desk, the confirmation and missed-appointment calls, the voicemail and text scripts, and how to certify a staff member is ready.

Key Takeaways

• Four objections cover nearly every call that goes wrong: non-committal, price, just wanting to watch a class, and style questions.
• Answer the non-committal caller by penciling in a tentative time, then closing on two specific openings.
• Climb the price question in stages: nothing the first time, two words the second, a short qualifier the third.
• When a family misses an appointment, open with “Is everything okay?” before you say anything about rebooking.
• A printed script nobody trained on is more expensive than no script at all, because the owner believes it is handled.

With one school, the price question looks like a staff problem. That person is nervous about money, or too young, or hasn’t been trained enough.

With eight schools you find out it’s the script. The same handful of objections comes back at every desk, in the same order, at roughly the same rate, from callers who have never met each other and staff who have never worked together.

There are four of them. They cover nearly every call that doesn’t go the way part one describes.

The four objections, and the response to each

The non-committal objection

“Pencil in” is the pressure valve. You lowered the commitment to almost nothing and still got a specific time onto a calendar, which is the only thing that matters.

The price objection

Roughly eight out of ten information calls open with some version of it, so treat it as the normal opening rather than a problem. It has four rungs, and you take them in order.

• First time: ignore and continue. No acknowledgment, no apology, no explanation.
• Second time: “It depends,” and continue.
• Third time: “It depends on which program we get you started on,” and continue.
• Fourth time and up: the variety line, then redirect.

“And continue” is the whole technique. Every response is four words or fewer, then straight into the next scripted question. Answer and go quiet, and the caller fills the silence with the same question, now with an edge on it.

We never say “we charge $497 a month” on the phone. You’re going to tell them. In person, after you know which program fits. Quoting a number to someone who hasn’t been evaluated is guessing – and you’re guessing in a conversation you can still lose.

“I just want to watch a class”

Never allow the watch (and they will ask, so decide now rather than in the moment). A parent in a folding chair is evaluating whether the class looks fun. A parent whose child has just finished a private first lesson is evaluating whether to enroll. Those are not the same appointment and they don’t produce the same number.

If a watch gets scheduled by accident, ignore that it was ever a watch and run a normal intro. If the parent arrives without the child, reschedule using the line above.

“Do you do Taekwondo?” (or Karate, or Kung Fu)

Never answer yes or no. They may love that style, or they may have had a terrible experience with it, and you have no idea which until you ask. A yes to the wrong person ends the call as fast as a no to the right one.

What happens right after you hang up

• Enter all the information now: local system, scheduler, CRM.
• Send the information packet. Send physical mail if the appointment is more than three days out.
• Print the student information sheet and the schedule for the appointment.
• Prepare. Know the child’s name, the age, and the sentence they gave you about what they want to accomplish.

The enrollment-day staff guide covers what happens on the floor once they’re through the door.

Confirming the appointment, twice

Discuss any issue with the second parent attending, but don’t reschedule the first lesson over it (it is almost never the real obstacle). And filling out the information sheet on this call isn’t busywork. Every question they answer tonight is a question they’ve already committed to answering.

If the day-before call didn’t connect, redo the contact card and fill out the information sheet on this one.

When they miss the appointment

“Is everything okay?” comes first, before anything about the appointment. They know they missed it and they’re braced to be scolded. Concern instead of accusation is the reason this call works at all.

“This happens a lot at this time of year” hands them an exit from embarrassment. “You’re in luck” turns the call from a failure into an opening.

The day-after call is the same, opening with: “I was reviewing my schedule from last night, and I see we missed your first black belt lesson.”

The voicemail and text scripts

On the missed-appointment voicemail, lead with “I hope everything is okay,” say you were looking forward to the lesson, run the “this happens a lot” and “you’re in luck” lines, give two specific times, and leave your number.

Training someone to actually run it

The script is the easy part. It’s on paper and you can hand it to someone in four seconds. Two errors kill it, and owners commit them in that order.

Error one is no script at all. Somebody improvises through the most valuable sixty seconds in the business.

Error two is the expensive one – a script that was poorly trained on. It’s printed, it’s sitting by the phone, it got read aloud once in a staff meeting, and the owner now believes the problem is handled. That belief is what makes error two worse than error one.

Notice which step owners skip. Nobody has ever asked me how to answer the phone. They ask how to handle the price question, almost every time. Objections are the part that produces the anxiety, so objections are the part they want to train, and training that first is punching your staff in the face before they’ve learned to block. The standard training protocol covers the full sequence and the eight-week rotation behind it (Moody, 2026).

The certification standard: write the script out by hand, pass the 171-point written test at 95 percent or better, then nine role plays with an instructor from your own school, two with an instructor from a different school, and one with me.

The different-school requirement matters more than it looks. Your own team goes easy on you because they like you and because they already know the answers (which is most of the reason the numbers look fine right up until a real caller phones).

Role play rules: stay in character, don’t discuss it, do it, and be tough without overdoing it. The most common failure in a role play session is two people talking about the script for eleven minutes and running it twice (I have watched this happen more often than I would like to admit).

The record behind the script

This is the script we ran across eight locations in two states – 18,000 students, more than 1,800 Black Belts, and staff members as young as ten answering the phone. They were good at it because the script was good, the training protocol was real, and nobody skipped a stage.

Ten-year-olds are not, generally speaking, my ideal age range for the phone.

What to do this week

• Put the script next to every phone in the building, visible, tonight.
• Call your own school from an unfamiliar number and open with “how much is it?” Ask three times. Write down what you get.
• Schedule role plays as a standing block. Not “when it slows down.” It doesn’t slow down.
• Start one staff member at step 1. Twenty minutes, out loud, no objections.
• Confirm every appointment on your book for the next two weeks, day before and day of, by call and text and email.

You can’t out-market a bad phone call. Every dollar you spend on advertising walks through those sixty seconds, and at most schools most of it walks back out.

Fix the sixty seconds first.

A version of this article first appeared at mastermoody.com.

References

Common questions from school owners

What are the objections I should train for?

Four cover nearly every call that goes sideways: the non-committal ‘let me think about it,’ the price question, ‘I just want to watch a class,’ and ‘do you teach such-and-such style.’ Each one has a fixed answer that ends by closing on two specific times.

What do I say when they ask the price a second and third time?

Climb it in stages. Say nothing the first time and continue. Two words the second. A short qualifier the third. Keep each reply tiny, then move immediately to your next scripted question, because silence after a reply invites the question again with an edge on it.

Should I let a parent just watch a class?

No. Somebody spectating from the side decides whether your program looks entertaining. Somebody whose child has just been through a private lesson decides whether to sign. Two completely different questions, and only one of them fills your school.

How many times should I confirm an appointment?

Two separate contacts, one the evening before and one on the day itself, using all three channels rather than picking whichever is quickest. No exceptions for privates or progress checks.

What do I do when a family misses their appointment?

Ring a quarter of an hour past the slot, then once more the following day. Open by asking whether everything is all right, since they’re expecting a telling-off and that expectation is what keeps them from picking up. Finish by naming two times, same as you did originally.

How do I know a staff member is ready for the phone?

Test them, don’t assume. Written exam first, then documented practice runs, and at minimum one of those against a stranger. Familiar colleagues grade generously (they like you, and they already know every answer you’re about to give).