5 Matching your customer’s Tonality on the Phone
Alan Stewart on Aug 05 2007
Okay, so you’ve discovered how to polish your telephone selling skills with word cues and predicates, now consider the other part of the equation:
Tonality Cues
Tonality is made up of:
Tempo (speed and rhythm)
Some people talk naturally very quickly, whilst others talk slowly with long slow pauses in between words. As with the other 3 elements of Tonality, it should be ‘voluntarily mandatory’ that all Teleprofessionals practice their scripts with varied degrees of speed and rhythm. Doing so will allow one to have the flexibility to automatically adapt to the many variations and shifts they may come across. Thus enhancing their ability to mirror any client’s tonality and therefore build rapport.
Timbre (quality of the sound)
People’s voices can vary from being very crisp and clear to dry and raspy.
Volume (loudness)
We’ve all heard voices that are boisterous and loud and others that are so soft they barely meet a whisper.
Pitch (degree of acuteness)
Pitch can range from deep monotone to ‘dentist drill’ high.
Hints on practising:
Practice all four elements of tonality exaggerated at first. Then bring them back to your natural voice range. When mirroring and matching you should create shifts in the tonality within the realms of your own voice so you still sound natural and not forced.
The specific Tonality Cues for each modality:
Visual: Faster, higher pitched
Auditory: Melodic, Rhythmic
Kinesthetic: Lower and softer