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There are good reasons for saying hello.

esmerel.com

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Re: There are good reasons for saying hello.

#3
post #2

Wait, people would just call somewhere and say the extension? That sounds awfully rude to me. Wouldn't you normally say, "Hi, can I have extension 432, please?" It does the same thing the article says, but you sound like a decent human being.

If you got a different response, like "Hi, XYZ Corp, what extension would you like?", it might be politeish.

Of course anyone being quite that manual has probably now been replaced by a PBX.

Re: There are good reasons for saying hello.

#5

I honestly can't believe people write posts about this.

I find it interesting that human voice communication seems to have a kind of built-in handshake to synchronize expectations of vowel sounds etc. It makes sense, but it hadn't occurred to me before now, and is probably part of the reason speech to text is so difficult.

Re: There are good reasons for saying hello.

#6
this is particularly true (in my limited experience) if you're not a native speaker - saying something like "hello i'd like to talk to extension 123" gives people a chance to figure out your accent. also, like smiling, saying something friendly encourages people to make an effort to understand you.

Re: There are good reasons for saying hello.

#7
post #5

I honestly can't believe people write posts about this.

I find it interesting that human voice communication seems to have a kind of built-in handshake to synchronize expectations of vowel sounds etc. It makes sense, but it hadn't occurred to me before now, and is probably part of the reason speech to text is so difficult.

I've known a few people who don't get the "conversation is ending" inflection and can't/don't express it. It leads to some awkward pauses on the phone and me having to ask continuously if there is anything else. May be the other person doesn't want to hang up first, but I have no trouble hanging up first if there's an indication that the conversation is over and the other person isn't just stalling because they have more to say.

Re: There are good reasons for saying hello.

#9
Very interesting. I think phone skills are something a lot of people overlook.

I don't have the resources to do a study on this, but another tip is to smile when you talk on the phone. It might just be because my voice is deeper (making something like a smiling face lets you hit higher notes when singing too), but it seems like people understand me faster on the phone when I do this.

Re: There are good reasons for saying hello.

#10
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that human voice communication seems to have a kind of built-in handshake to synchronize expectations of vowel sounds etc. It makes sense, but it hadn't occurred to me before now, and is probably part of the reason speech to text is so difficult.

I've known a few people who don't get the "conversation is ending" inflection and can't/don't express it. It leads to some awkward pauses on the phone and me having to ask continuously if there is anything else. May be the other person doesn't want to hang up first, but I have no trouble hanging up first if there's an indication that the conversation is over and the other person isn't just stalling because they have…

In my experience I know a couple people who don't understand how the conversation starting and ending works. Usually a person's tone and speaking pace has a distinct pattern at the beginning of the conversation, and also a distinct pattern at the end that shows that the conversation is ending.

These people just start off talking like it is the middle of the conversation. When they are done they just walk right off abruptly. It is interesting the way we come to expect certain speaking patterns based on how most people communicate.

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