5 Responses

1. Voice awareness
   For one aspect of voice coaching/awareness, what springs to mind is the old favourite exercise of reading the same sentence many times over, each time placing the emphasis on a different word.

   If you record calls, you could get your staff to record themselves doing this and playing it back to show them the effect this has on the phone.

   “My Fair Lady” also springs to mind, where Eliza is recorded practising her “rain in Spain”! I can remember when we first introduced voice mail, many were horrified when they played back their outgoing messages! They had not realised that they sounded differently to other people. Many wanted to change the way they came across! In effect, they reflected on how they sounded, then re-recorded their messages again, making the changes they felt were appropriate. Perhaps this use of recording could be used, so that your staff are aware of how they sound?

2. Emotion and the voice
   Jason,
   Getting someone to realise that the way they feel – their mental state – will affect their vocal delivery (and their body language) is not always easy to do.

   To get someone to do this you first have to get them to ‘hear’ their own voice.

   As already suggested, listening to taped voices can help but they also need to get confident with their voice by recognising how their voice works from inside their heads.

   The only way to get them to do this is for them to try7 out exercises, reading poetry, play scripts, etc that contain emotion. That way they can start to experiment with the way they use variation, pace, pitch, tone, emphasis, and expression.

   There is no easy fix. Sorry.

   Nigel

3. Injury prevention
   Jason
   It’s not clear from your entry just why you want call centre staff to be more aware of their voices. Prevention of voice injury is arguably an area enormously neglected; awareness in this context includes awareness of psychological hazards as well as physical ones. I’m an ergonomist specialising in occupational safety and health and run workshops on voice safety in call centres. You’re welcome to call me on 020 8654 0808

4. Simulation is the key
   Calls can be simulated with pre-recorded callers with different accents and the call agent’s responses can be similarly recorded for analysis and coaching. Call me on 0207 400 4800 and I’ll talk you through the concept in greater detail.

5. Be specific
   Jason,

   I’m confused what are your learning objectives? Unless you identify them specifically your coaching will be generalised and you wont be able to evaluate your success.
   One can read a book/manual to become ‘aware’ of something, learning and coaching demand more consideration.

   Regards