Simply Smarter Communications™

Richard Kenny

E&A Marketing Manager, Plantronics

Make an impact with your voice

Make An Impact With Your Voice

• 1 in 4 agents in contact centres reported vocal health issues*

• Wide range of symptoms– difficulty talking against background noise

– coughing or clearing the throat

– the voice sounding creaky and dry

– failure to be heard when talking on the telephone

– finding it an effort or tiring to speak on the telephone

• Potential to be mis-diagnosed

• Do you have an acoustic intelligence strategy in place?

* IOSH: Working voices: an epidemiological study of occupational voice demands and their impact on the call centre industry, 2012, Hazlett, Moorhead & Duffy

Vocal Health

Make An Impact With Your Voice

Acoustic Intelligence

SPEECH IMPACT

VOICE

INTELLIGIBILITY

AUDIO

ERGONOMICS

THE RIGHT CONVERSATION

THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY

THE RIGHT DESIGN

Make An Impact With Your Voice

What’s wrong here?

Make An Impact With Your Voice

Everything in its right place

• Simple tips– Get your microphone

in the right place

– Corner of mouth, approx 2 fingers width away

– Audit your contact centre regularly

– Make sure voice tube is present

– Replace these regularly

Make An Impact With Your Voice

Speech Intelligibility

• The sounds that make speech ‘intelligible’ are consonants

• Consonants generally quieter than vowels in natural speech

• Speech systems need to emphasise 2000 – 4000Hz to ensure maximum intelligibility

6

Make An Impact With Your Voice

• Microphone based technology designed to reduce unwanted noise that a caller hears

• Simple, robust technology built into the headset microphone

• Enables agent to talk more naturally when noise levels are higher

Noise Cancelling

Make An Impact With Your Voice

• Sitting is very inefficient for your voice

• Compresses lungs, restricts vocal cords

• Standing up helps you deliver more power, more authority– “opening up the airways”

• Wireless headset gives you more freedom to stand up and talk

Stand up for your rights

Make An Impact With Your Voice

Background Noise

Make An Impact With Your Voice

• Simple Tips– Don’t hold team meetings

in the contact centre

– Don’t use sound effects (bells, klaxons, whistles etc.) to signify large orders

– White noise generators?

– Furniture & carpets make a difference

(Don’t) Bring the noise

Make An Impact With Your Voice

• Real cost to the business of taking voice for granted– Overused voices can’t tell customers how good your service is

• Train, train & train again

• Simple solutions– Hydrate well

– Make agents voices heard by setting up headsets correctly

– Quieten the background noise

– Walk & talk

Overall Conclusions

Simply Smarter Communications™