Communication has always played an important role in our lives. Whether it’s through technology or actual words; our tone of voice when we speak, the facial expressions or hand gestures used to express ourselves are very important. For example, when you call a customer service line, sometimes you’re greeted with an unpleasant tone of voice, it makes you feel as if the employee doesn’t want to speak to you. Which can leave you questioning if you’re a valued customer. On the other hand, if the employee answers the phone with an enthusiastic tone of voice, it’ll make you feel more welcome and valued. When dealing with customers, tone of voice is crucial because it can either make or break a deal. Here are a few common problems related to an employees tone of voice and customer dissatisfaction.
1. Bad Attitude
An employee having a bad attitude can be one of the main reasons customers don’t feel appreciated. Imagine calling a customer service hotline and the employee sounds extremely rude and disinterested in what you have to say. It can be disheartening and even offensive towards the customer. As the owner of a company, it can be frustrating to know that your employees are the ones breaking sales instead of making them. A way to fix this problem is finding employees who are passionate about their work. Choose employees who have a positive attitude towards their work and who can always make an effort to care about the satisfaction of customers by talking to them in a delighted, happy tone. Remember, your tone of voice matters immensly.
2. Boredom
If your employees are taking calls day in and day out, repeating the same tasks over and over again, their job is bound to get boring. Once an employee gets bored, they start to lose interest in the task at hand. This can be a major problem when it comes to calling customers. The employee’s tone of voice can start to sound monotone, making the customers dissatisfied because the employee should value them more. A way to fix this is allowing employees to mix things up in their work environment. As an employer, you should keep things exciting for your employees, such as rewarding whoever works the best with a free coffee. This will keep things interesting and add a little variety and competition into their day, which will hopefully lead them to take calls with a positive attitude.
3. Inadequate Training
An employee may have a less than satisfactory tone of voice on the phone because they haven’t been trained properly to have a professional conversation. The employee may be nervous or unsure of what to do, what to say or how to adjust their tone of voice to accommodate the customer. Employees shouldn’t be blindly put up with such a big task without sufficient training because learning how to communicate properly with others requires constant training. In order to train your employees to use the proper tone of voice when communicating with others, you could invest in a sales communications trainer in order to ensure a proper tone of voice and customer satisfaction.
4. Scripts
Many customer service hotlines use guidelines for the employee to understand how to communicate with customers. However, these are just guidelines. When guidelines turn into scripts and the employee is following a word for word format, their tone of voice and choice of words will sound robotic. Customers love to feel valued and having a personal connection with them is key, when scripts are involved, an employee will sound like a recording and disinterested from the conversation, instead of being personalized. A way to fix this is to strictly use guidelines as guidelines, instead of a script, so the conversation can sound much more personal.
Conclusion
An employees tone of voice can influence how valued the customer feels and whether they will be purchasing your product or service in the future. Hopefully, these flaws and errors regarding the customer service industry can help you fix or enhance your customer service in the future!