Using Voice Communication to Create Lasting Customer Impressions

Voice communication is a powerful tool for persuading and influencing small business customers. Today, customers generally prefer to do business over the phone or via digital means rather than take time out of their day to visit your business office.

While in-person communication is ideal for certain transactions and interactions, the phone is still the primary way businesses communicate with their clients. Phone communication lacks visual cues, and without them, your sales reps and support agents only have their words, tone, and inflection to communicate messages to your customers.

Every interaction creates a lasting impression with your customers, and it’s important that interactions consistently reflect your brand.

Why Voice Communication Is Important

Voice is a vital element of every business. Speaking with another person creates a human connection, which is so vital for any relationship.

The Importance of How Your Company Communicates

By placing a phone call to a customer, you’re showing how important they are by making time for them, rather than sending a quick email or SMS text message.

Voice communication without a physical presence is challenging because it’s harder to pick up on someone’s body language and other nonverbal signals. As such, sales reps and support agents face many challenges in voice communication. On top of having to meet their sales quotas, they need to connect with callers and keep building on that connection to keep them engaged and further develop the relationship.

How Tone of Voice Affects Communication

When you think of tone, you think of words like music, pitch, and inflection. When it comes to voice communications, good tonal quality is like music to your ears. It sounds nice and makes you feel good. That’s the kind of feeling you want to give your customers.

You’ve probably heard the saying, “It’s not what you said. It’s how you said it.” That sentiment speaks loudly to the importance of tone and the impression it leaves on someone.

¿How important is tone in voice communications? An article on communication theory called Inference of Attitudes from Nonverbal Communication in Two Channels shows the following details about effective communication:

• Body language accounts for 55% of communication
•  
• Voice tone accounts for 38% of communication
  
• Words alone account for 7% of communication

Your tone can reflect a variety of attitudes. It can be funny, serious, casual, formal, respectful, or irreverent. On the phone, your tone immediately tells the other party whether you’re enthusiastic, direct, or matter-of-fact. At the start of a conversation, the tone plays a big role in how the person receiving the call responds to what the first person has to say. In fact, it can color the entire conversation positively or negatively.

On that note, ¿have you ever listened to sales reps or support agents on the job in your call center?

Here’s what to look for:

• ¿Are they reading call scripts verbatim and in a monotone voice?
  
• Are they using a positive, ¿Upbeat tone of voice in communication?
  
• Do they pause and wait for a response from the person they called before interjecting?
  
• Do they change their tone if the customer’s response signals the need for empathy or sensitivity?
  

Your employees’ tone reflects your business’s character, culture, and branding.

How Voice Communication Differs From Written Communication

Small businesses require some combination of written and verbal communication. Written communication can be a handwritten letter, online chat, email, or instant message. Voice communication refers to phone calls and voicemail communications.

Small business owners need to understand the similarities and differences between voice and written communication when setting up communication workflows.

With written communication, you have two components—the words you use and how you design them on a page.  the type and size of the font, usage of emojis, and even the medium (email, brochure, text) you choose all play a role in the messaging and tone you send to your customers. 

With phone interactions, there is a back-and-forth conversation. By contrast, written communication is asynchronous, which means that parts of the conversation happen at different times (except for chat, chatbots, and instant messaging). 

The time lag between responses can make written communication more challenging than verbal. When a recipient reads a written response, the sender isn’t there to interpret the receiver’s response, and they’re often in the dark about it until the recipient has a chance to reply.

Because there’s usually no opportunity for immediate feedback, it’s crucial to choose your words and phrases wisely to ensure your messages are accurate, clear, and project the right message and tone. This is an important concept as you establish workflows for email, texting, and chat into your call center.

Developing the Perfect Customer Relationship With Voice

With the importance of voice communications within your business, it’s fair to question how to take your voice communication workflows from “so-so” to “amazing”.

That’s exactly what did when it changed its hiring process. Instead of requiring 100% technical skill, it requires applicants to have 10% technical skill and 90% passion. Apple became and the first trillion-dollar company, so there’s something to be said for putting a significant focus on attitude, friendliness, tone of voice, and confidence.

How can your small business perfect the customer relationship with voice? If you’ve already embraced digital transformation, you already have the right tools in your call center. If you haven’t, it’s not too late to move in that direction

. Here’s how:

• Arrange for call center training and mentoring.
• Set up workflows for analyzing voice calls using voice recordings, call monitoring, and call whispering.
• Implement CRM integrations that leverage call tags and insight cards.
• Utilize call center scripts, but personalize them using customer details.
• Reduce waiting times so customers are less frustrated when they reach a representative.
• Provide greater context when transferring calls with the warm transfer feature (reps can attach a short message to the transferred call).