Do you spend a significant amount of time selling over the telephone?

Are you a customer service rep, and regularly interact with your company&8217;s customers?

While interacting over the telephone creates a unique set of challenges, one item you have complete control over is your tone of voice.

Tone of voice tells the customer many things about us.

What kind of mood are we in?

Are we there to be helpful or not?

Am I dealing with a competent, confident person?

Our tone of voice will cause customers to make subtle and rapid judgments about us.

What is specifically within your control?

For one, voice quality is.

Adjusting your voice quality to the situation will help improve your communication with the customer.

It&8217;s important to be appropriate.

For example, if you&8217;re handling a customer complaint call, it would be inappropriate to be light and giddy.

Rather, you&8217;d want to have a well-modulated, professional tone that conveys concern, efficiency and a desire to resolve the matter promptly.

Also in your control is you voice inflection.

Everyone&8217;s voice sounds different.

Some voices are deep and portray authority, while others sound meek.

Voices can be pleasant or annoying, easy to hear or unintelligible.

Sing-songy voices are unnatural, and distract the customer from what they really want to accomplish.

Three key factors determine what voice you project:

-Energy:

The energy in your voice reflects your attitude and enthusiasm.

-Rate of Speech:

Speaking too fast creates many perceptual and listening problems.

Speak at a pace that is comfortable for you and cognizant of the listener&8217;s needs as well.

-Pitch:

Avoid talking in monotones.

Some variation in tone and inflection demonstrates interest and enthusiasm.

Finally, put a smile in your voice!

It&8217;s easy to do.

Simply remember to smile as you answer the phone or begin a call.

Your voice will automatically sound friendlier!

It&8217;s hard to be grumpy or unpleasant when you&8217;re smiling