As someone working in a customer facing role for a lot of my tech career, most of it is sound advice. The one missing item that isn't is deescalating urgent situations by not assigning blame during the interaction.
Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers
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Re: Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers
#42What this article misses is adapting diction to the customer (at least in non offensive ways.) For example, in my business I deal with a lot of mental health professionals that tend to use a lot more bigger words. I match my word choices to their own diction and tone, “educated collegues conversing.” While when I am dealing with therapy clients, it’s more variable: For a customer that uses words common in the South (such as y’all,) I will flow with that, for European customers, I become more clear and deliberate with my word choices, as an example. Having been a long term expat, that ability to adapt English diction to the audience has been invaluable — just don’t be patronizing or rude obviously. Just match the other person and stay within their vocabulary and diction comfort level. That’s very powerful and it works.
Re: Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers
#43Solve. My. Fucking. Problem. Now.
I bought your product or service. Possibly out of choice. Very likely not. It's failed. That's on you. It's often failed multiple times / repeatedly.
Don't waste my time. Don't patronise me. And fix the fucking problem.
Re: Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers
#44Interesting point about using a person's name. I've always associated that with a slightly patronising manner, which makes me wonder what're they after. An old boss used to drive me up the wall, as any vaguely difficult conversation he wanted to have would be peppered with my name - it can easily go too far and rapidly become false
It's not patronising. It's deliberately manipulative.
Re: Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it important to remind someone of their own name in the middle of a long conversation?
I suppose to reassure them of the personal touch -- that this isn't a copy+paste response. But to me it usually feels forced. Much better to find a more natural way to remind them this is a personalized message, like referencing their situation. "As this is an urgent request, Jennifer, we can provide..." vs. "As this is an urgent request due to your upcoming status meeting, we can provide...".
I don't think it goes very far to reassure me that a response is copy/pasted or machine-written. My name could be as easily pulled from a database as from someone's memory.
Re: Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers
#46Interesting point about using a person's name. I've always associated that with a slightly patronising manner, which makes me wonder what're they after. An old boss used to drive me up the wall, as any vaguely difficult conversation he wanted to have would be peppered with my name - it can easily go too far and rapidly become false
At the child dentist I take my kids to, they call men "Dad" and women "Mom". For example, "Okay, Dad, we're here to get a check up for John today? Just fill out this form, Dad." It's awful and I hate it.
edit: I hate it for the same patronizing feeling you described. I love hearing my kids call me "Dad", not strangers.
Re: Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers
#47Most of my irritation with customer service here in India arises out of pure and unbridled stupidity, or dishonesty, particularly with some notorious companies.
I remember a few years ago I wanted to cancel my internet connection and the agent argued that I had a bill due, which I hadn't paid because I was told I didn't need to pay until their services were restored (their fiber was damaged for several months).
Eventually I said I didn't want to cancel, but I wanted to know the status of my complaint, which I had filed a few months prior when the fiber was damaged. The agent said that there was a record of me confirming that my connectivity had been restored (an obvious lie or fabrication).
Then I said I wanted to issue a new complaint that my connection wasn't working.
At this point, almost seamlessly I was told that my area had no connectivity due to a fiber cable that was damaged a few months ago.
That is around the time when I become irate, at which point I was begrudgingly told that payment was not needed.
Re: Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers
#48Most of my irritation with customer service here in India arises out of pure and unbridled stupidity, or dishonesty, particularly with some notorious companies. I remember a few years ago I wanted to cancel my internet connection and the agent argued that I had a bill due, which I hadn't paid because I was told I didn't need to pay until their services were restored (their fiber was damaged for several months). Event…
My experience with Airtel has been that a well-written and firm email describing my intention for a complaint is very effective. Also a simple "I will not pay for your service if you don't resolve this" gets you very far with customer service.
I'm waiting for the rumored Jio fiber thing to fuck up Airtel's business, just like they did with the mobile services.
Re: Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers
#49Solve. My. Fucking. Problem. Now. I bought your product or service. Possibly out of choice. Very likely not. It's failed. That's on you. It's often failed multiple times / repeatedly. Don't waste my time. Don't patronise me. And fix the fucking problem.
Sometimes the customer is wrong and it's not an issue with the service. And sometimes the customer is rude. I won't expect any human being to accept rude behavior from anybody.
Re: Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers
#50Solve. My. Fucking. Problem. Now. I bought your product or service. Possibly out of choice. Very likely not. It's failed. That's on you. It's often failed multiple times / repeatedly. Don't waste my time. Don't patronise me. And fix the fucking problem.
Sometimes the customer is wrong and it's not an issue with the service. And sometimes the customer is rude. I won't expect any human being to accept rude behavior from anybody.
Organisations are often systemically rude, whether by evolution or design. This is not occult knowledge.
And not all organisations are bad at customer support. I'm also aware that solutions aren't always immediately forthcoming. But it should be possible to move toward resolution on a continuous track, respecting the customer's tiime, intelligence (if indicated), and humanity.
Endless holds, bureaucratic busywork, front-line incompetence, inability to retain state on aan issue, etc., are all failures.
Counterexamples: Apple will schedule support calls or call back rather than keep customers on hold. Various no-hasssle return or exchange policies reduce customer risk or aapprehension. I frequently find far more competence among field techs than phone support, even in notorious areas such as residential / SOHO telecoms, as the techs directly interface with both equipment and customers. I've known enterprise software and hardware vendors who go all-out in ensuring customer satisfaction (though you frequently pay up front for this).
Invert these instances, and you'll find what I was calling out above.
And very little of the competence has to do with voice-honing. It comes from knowing how to do the fucking job and being authorised and expected to do just that.
It means training, retaining, equipping, respecting, and rewarding support staff for doing just this.
And not resorting to cheap, manipulative, ineffective, gimmicks.