The Art of Mumbling

 

Speak loud enough but not too loud. Don't speak too quickly or too slowly. Enunciate your words carefully. Seven years of public speaking training from high school through college. Spoke at church, filled in as a worship leader, etc. Then I got a job in a call centre and had to relearn to mumble.

You read right. There is a time to mumble.

As a representative, we are expected to greet our customers in a friendly manner, and as soon as they tell us who they are, we are expected to use their name. If we don't, our quality scores suffer. I want good quality scores. I get good quality scores.

Sounds easy, right? Wrong. A taxicab driver who barely speaks English is calling to apply for a credit card from his taxi on a cheap cell phone with poor reception while serving customers, trying to talk over his dispatch radio. No insult intended, these guys hustle their butts off to make a living, but...

"Could I have your first and last name, please?"

"Marfinerfemerb Haberfinerpinshab."

Saying, "Pardon, could you repeat that?" will get you nowhere. It could hurt your quality score. It'll definitely screw up your call handle time. My advice is just respond back confidently with a very garbled, "And how can I help you today, Mr. Marfinefefeemra Hebefindmaminav?" Trail off at the end of your words, and you almost can't lose. In my experience, only the first couple of letters of each perceived word are important. Fifteen years in call centres, and I think I can still count the number of times a customer has interrupted me to correct my pronunciation on my fingers. I've never been marked down for it. Even when the quality agents knew about my infamous trailing mumble.

I think it works because I sound confident, and people hear what they want to hear. The customer wants to hear their name. Quality wants to hear me say it. Kind of sounds like I did, so everybody gives me the benefit of the doubt. Everybody is happy, and I can move right on to taking care of the customer's questions or concerns.

My current employer wants us to build rapport with our customers, and you would not believe how far an agreeable-sounding mumbled conversation will get you. Got to be careful there, though. Most of the time, you do need to know what the customer is talking about.

Mumble on all you mumblers!