How to sound confident on the phone

i think the best way for me to explain
this is through the selfish
syllables so here it goes i'm sorry
doremi fossola
today i am going to talk about the most
effective trick on how to sound
confident over the phone even if you're
not feeling confident
and especially when you're talking to an
irate customer
[Music]
so what i want you to do is to listen to
these two recordings
these are agent one and agent two
they're gonna say the exact
same thing to the customer but there's
gonna be a huge difference so what i
want you to do is to
judge which of the two agents sound
more confident here's agent one
well nobody told me about the penalty so
i need you to waive that penalty right
now
yes we normally waive the penalty for
the first time
but according to your history on may 3rd
of last year
we have already given you an exception
in this case
we will have to charge you the penalty
this time
agent two yes we normally waive the
penalty for the first time
but according to your history on may 3rd
of last year
we have already given you an exception
in this case
we will have to charge you the penalty
this time
sentence by sentence for those of you
who still haven't decided yet
yes we normally waive the penalty for
the first time
yes we normally waive the penalty for
the first time
but according to your history on may 3rd
of last year
we have already given you an exception
but according to your history on may 3rd
of last year
we have already given you an exception
in this case
we will have to charge you the penalty
this time
in this case we will have to charge you
the penalty this time
so it's pretty obvious that agent 2
sounds more confident than agent one
right
but what made her sound so
because after all they were saying the
exact same thing
to the same customer with the same
question
but somehow agent do sounds more
confident than agent one
and the answer to that my friend is
their voice pitch
what the heck is a voice pitch
[Music]
pitch in speech according to
britannica.com
is the relative highness or lowness
of a tone as perceived by the ear
so if i'm going to give an example this
is a lower voice pitch
and this is a higher voice pitch i think
the best way for me to explain this
is through the selfish syllables
so here it goes i'm sorry doremi
fasolatido
so as you heard those are eight
different notes and
from the lower dough to the upper dough
the
pitch gradually increased so from the
lower dough
my voice sounded deeper but as i go
through all
eight different syllables up to the
upper do
my voice sounded tinier so
how can we apply this when it comes to
sounding confident over the phone
[Music]
so the answer is you want to consciously
lower your voice pitch
research shows that people with
lower voice pitch are perceived as more
confident more in control more
authoritative and if we're going back
to the examples of agent one and two
agent 1 spoke with a higher voice pitch
yes we normally waive the penalty for
the first time
while agent 2 spoke with a lower voice
pitch
yes we normally waive the penalty for
the first time
and another thing that you should always
avoid is
using a high pitch at the very end
of a declarative sentence a high pitch
or a question pitch
what do i mean by that yes we normally
waive the penalty for the first time
but according to your history on may 3rd
of last year
we have already given you an exception
so as you saw
even if the sentences ended with a
period which makes them a declarative
sentence
agent one still spoke them like they
were
questions because at the very end of the
sentence
she used a question pitch or a high
pitch
what you want to do when you want to
establish authority or sound more
confident
is to make sure that you end a
declarative sentence with a period
or a low pitch yes we normally waive the
penalty for the first time
but according to your history on may 3rd
of last year
we have already given you an exception
when you end
a declarative sentence with a question
pitch
it shows it sounds like you are not
certain about what you're talking about
it sounds like a question
so the customer is going to have this
unconscious
feeling that you're not even sure about
what you're talking about so maybe
she can get around the company policy
there is an accent in the u.s that you
should probably avoid
copying if you want to sound confident
over the phone
and that's called the valley girl
accent this accent has a way of
ending a declarative sentence with a
high pitch or a question pitch
which is a no-no when you are talking to
an irit customer it usually sounds like
this i went to the mall to buy some air
conditioner and i saw amelia clark
and she was very nice or something like
that i'm
i'm probably doing a bad impersonation
but
the characteristic of that accent is
that it
ends a declarative sentence with a
question pitch
[Music]
so now what i'm going to do is to react
to the
mock call video of candace where she
talked to
a verbally abusive customer i am holding
my laptop because i don't have a table
so
let's begin candace
what the actual is going on with your
company
are you guys going bankrupt or something
as far as i know the company is stable
and doing great may i know your concern
okay this part is great because candace
ended
her declarative sentence with a period
a low pitch and when she asked me
your concern it was a question pitch
because it was a question sentence
so that's good next
hold on hold on hold on what are you
talking about i don't have any chance to
use that code at all
i paid the full price of that juicer
with my own money
if you check the order confirmation for
the juicer you ordered on the second
you were supposed to pay 49.99 but since
the discount 10 voucher was applied to
it
you ended up paying only 39.99
okay this is where the mistake happened
let me replay the part where candace's
pitch was a little off
if you check the order confirmation for
the juicer you ordered on the second
if you check the order confirmation of
the juicer you ordered on the second
it shouldn't have been like that it
should have been
if you check the order confirmation of
the juicer you ordered on the second
lower pitch on the second not on the
second
because it sounds like a question and
it's not a question so that's wrong
next you were supposed to pay 49.99
again you were supposed to pay 49.99
but it's not a question it was a
statement so it should have been
you were supposed to pay 49.99
that's it lower pitch next
so so let me get this straight you're
saying that i cannot reuse that voucher
no all our vouchers can only be used
one time so that's good because she was
stating
a fact all our vouchers can only be used
one
time what about the promise that claire
made me
she told me as you can see from her
email that she's going to send me a
replacement voucher
because the first one didn't work the
voucher did work tabitha unfortunately
claire made a mistake she was under the
impression that the voucher has not been
used at all but was still displaying
that error message
okay um this is already
a great delivery but notice
that candice in the middle of her
sentence she said
at all the adult was overly high
her baseline okay let me show you
she was under the impression that the
voucher was not being used at all
when it should have been she was under
the impression that the voucher has not
been used at all
but when she said at all it was it was
quite
high compared to her baseline and that
was because
she was extremely nervous when she was
delivered when she delivered
this bad news to the customer and
sometimes this
really happens when you are consciously
trying to make your voice lower
but there are times when there are leaks
when there are there are times when the
nerves
really get to you and it reflects on
on your speech because when there's a
great fluctuation between your
rising and falling intonation it
indicates
that you are nervous which candace was
during this call but overall this is an
okay
way of delivering the news it was still
okay
we cannot expect it to be perfect but
i'm just
showing you the parts where candice
delivered the news
with 100 confidence and
the parts where it's a little shaky and
it could be
stronger but according to your order
history here it has already been used
in this case we cannot issue a
replacement voucher
good that's good she went down when she
entered her declarative sentences
next are you going to compromise your
integrity for a 10 voucher
seeing that it was you who made a
mistake not me
if the code wasn't used then we'd be
able to issue a replacement
but since you have used it and the
discount was applied
we just can't this is great
but since you have already used it and a
discount was applied
we just can't thanks for waiting tabitha
so what do you have for me my supervisor
has checked your previous cases and
decided oh here we go
another one my supervisors checked your
previous cases
when it could have just been
it could just have been my supervisor
has tracked your previous cases
instead of my supervisor has checked
your previous cases
so that's the nerves getting into
candice and
you just have to expect that that's fine
next
previous cases and decided that we
cannot give you another voucher
and that's because
we have checked your previous cases and
we have seen
nine similar cases as this one okay so
in this part candace repeated herself
because she was interrupted by the
customer
as you heard in her first delivery of
the news
she said my supervisor has checked your
previous cases but
the next time we have checked your
previous cases
so you compare the two phrases and you
will see the difference
first we have checked your previous
cases
and the second was we have checked your
previous cases
so as you can see there's still a
difference between the racing and
falling intonation
but the racing part it's not fluctuating
very high
and each time we have given you an extra
voucher even if you have already used
each of them for this reason we cannot
give you another voucher today
for this reason we cannot give you
another voucher today
great i'm gonna make sure that you are
fired
yes you candace you are going to lose
your job
and hell shall freeze before i order
from your company again
unfortunately tabitha this decision is
already final
so that's great um candace here really
tried her best to make it
to deliver it in a lower voice pitch as
you heard her voice was
was deep as i said i need compensation
for that
and we would have gladly given you
another voucher okay
here candice was a little
i think there is there's some anger in
her voice when she said
and we would have gladly given you
another voucher
when she said another voucher there was
an undeniable anger in her voice but of
course
she cannot verbally say it but it was
reflecting in her non-verbal
nonverbal communication it could have
been and we would have gladly given you
another voucher
it could have just been like that it
could have been more neutral when it's
delivered like that
she went really high in another voucher
because that was her her anger
reflecting on her reply but we have seen
from your records here that this has
been a pattern with you
you call and claim that your vouchers
aren't working
even if you have successfully used them
with your orders and all
nine previous agents gave you a
replacement each time and
this has been happening for nine times
now we cannot give you another one today
okay so here is my review of candace's
voice pitch during her mock call
so overall her voice pitch the deepness
of her voice
was enough for her to be taken seriously
by the customer i had no issue about her
baseline voice pitch but there are times
when she's emotionally charged or
when she is nervous that her emotion
affects her voice pitch and she tends to
spike
pretty high from the usual
baseline and that will usually tell the
customer that
the agent is nervous as long as it
doesn't happen
often that's fine you don't have to do
it perfectly
all the time there are really just times
when
you feel a pretty strong emotion and it
reflects on your voice
overall it is better to not let your
customer feel or
know that you are triggered by her
actions so
what you want to do by default most of
the time
is to deliver your statements in a
neutral way
[Music]
please note that this tone of voice
should not be used
in every single call there are
situations when it's just
imperative that you sound confident in
order to
establish authority and tell your
customer that you know what you're
talking about
but there are situations when you have
to also use
high pitch like example is
if you are talking to a bubbly grandma
who likes knitting and who likes
lemonades
of course you're gonna be talking uh
your tone is going to be a little bit
more friendlier
more accommodating more open because
you're not necessarily trying to display
confidence or dominance over the
customer you're trying to be friendly
another thing please note that i am not
telling you to make your voice
monotone no far from it
if you listen to the voice of agent 2
you will notice that there is still a
noticeable difference between her
rising and falling intonation if you
compare
agent one and two this is where agent
one is um it's a higher voice pitch
it's a higher voice pitch overall but if
you
listen to agent 2 she lowered her over
her average voice pitch she went like
this
but as you can see there's still a
difference between her
rising and falling intonation so it's
not really a monotone
a monotone usually happens when there's
barely a difference between her rising
and falling intonation
there should always be a difference
between your rising and falling
intonation because that's how
the brain is going to process your
information
easily alright guys that's all for today
please note that
a deeper voice pitch is only one of the
many tips on how to sound
more confident over the phone so if you
want more videos like this let me know
in the comments below
and i will make more videos for you
alright that's all for today thank you
so much for watching
bye bye
authoritative authoritative
authoritative