SPECIAL REPORT by Susan Berkley
Choosing the best interactive voice response system for your company doesn't end with the hardware decision. Researchers have found that as much as 84% of an impression is formed by the sound of the voice that delivers the message.
Here are nine ways to help your system sound as welcoming and non-offensive as possible.
1. Avoid uneven volume. If the voice sounds like it's yelling or speaking too softly it could be a mechanical problem. But most likely the speaker doesn't know how to modulate the tone of his/her voice and project in a consistent and pleasant manner.
2. Speak clearly. Because of the limited bandwidth of the telephone, speech is generally not as clear as it would be face to face. Special care should be taken with the articulation of final D's and T's as well as with the difference between certain numbers such as 15 and 50 and 13 and 30.
3. Don't over-enunciate. In an attempt to be clear, some speakers over do it. Its a definite turn off.
4. Make sure your speaker smiles while speaking. It comes through in the voice.
5. Speak at a comfortable, conversational pace. Callers become irritated if the speech is too slow. Yet they may miss information if the speaker talks too quickly.
6. Watch those numbers! The most sophisticated IVR applications include alpha-numerics with rising, neutral and falling inflections such as would be spoken in a bank balance. A good speaker should be able to match the tonality of all the numbers spoken If not, the result will sound choppy.
7. Make sure the voice that speaks your alpha-numerics is the same voice that speaks your text. Failure to do so will negate all the other human factors you've been trying so hard to engineer and will result in something that sounds like an audio ransom note!
8. Callers prefer short, concise menus. Eliminate redundant words like 'please' and 'for'. Just because there are 12 keys on the telephone keypad doesn't mean you have to use them all!
9. Keep your menu choices consecutive. It's confusing if callers must press 'one' for accounting, 'six' for customer service, and 'three' for sales.
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