"Speak clearly please."


Earlier this morning I actually had a rare event happen to me.... A commercial phone call was actually addressed to me, not my roomate, Noah, as usual. Normally he's the one that all the telemarketers call for....

Well, this time it was my credit card company calling to offer me something. As usual, I wasn't interested. I just care about the bare bones when it comes to things like that. Unfortunately, though, I was having a very hard time understanding anything the woman was saying, and it wasn't because of the telephone connection -- it was her accent.

Now, I would think that if you want to conduct business on the phone, you've gotta have people who can be easily understood. There really shouldn't be need for debate over this. If a customer can't understand you, how are you going to drum up business? It's not like in real life, with body language, eye contact, expressions and all those auxillery forms of communication. On the phone, it's strictly your voice that gets used to convey the message. The plain and simple is, you just have to be understood.

Well, this woman who called me was clearly one of those smaller hispanic women (the maid type), and she had the accent to prove it. I had to keep asking her to repeat things, and I think by the end of the call, she either thought I was high on drugs and slow of hearing, or just trying to annoy her.

I did get the gist of her call though, however, I did have to wonder why she was working in this field. She clearly neither had the necessary vocal clarity for it, nor the voice training. The sad thing is, it was probably a case of "equal opportunity employment". The company, by law, needed to have all their bases covered, so she got the job. Hmm.

....Perhaps telemarketers should have vocal training much like singers or actors go through. I imagine it would help a large majority of them do their job better. And it would certainly be easier on the ears of those of us stupid enough to listen to them for long. ... [grin].

Have a blessed Wednesday.
(And if you're ever in a position to call me, please, PLEASE, SPEAK CLEARLY!) ... [wink]!

Your happily blogging friend,
-Jon
posted by Jon at 11:14 AM  I   I  0 comments