Mother Teresa said, – “We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.”
That is very true. Smile has an invincible power that heals, uplifts everyone’s spirit, and, is the universal language of love. And the best part is that you can use it with anyone and expect a smile back and so forge a positive bond with each other in this process.
That is the reason business gurus put so much emphasis on the importance of a smile in customer service interaction. Smiling at your customers, the moment they walk into your store creates a positive impact on them. However, a smile is not only necessary for “face to face” interactions, smiling on a phone call can as well have a positive impact onyour customer, literally!
You must be wondering how smiling on phone can be conveyed to the customer? They cannot see the customer service agent over the phone. But they can hear it, and that’s what does the trick.
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The Power of Smiling on the Phone
It has long been a standard advice in sales and customer service to smile while communicating on the phone. As a matter of fact, there is even a term that applies to making outgoing calls: “Smile and Dial.”
Of course, the idea of smiling on the phone has been around for quite a few years, a large number of call center agentsstill do not understand its importance. In fact, novice agents who have not received any kind of customer service training often say that they have never been told to smile on the phone. After all, it is not something you learn at school. It’s more of an“on the job” training.
At Fusion CX, we encourage our agents to smile on the phone and engage the customer with a smiling tone in their voice. While preaching this concept, our trainers often have noticed an interesting thing; while alarge section of our fresh-faced new agents have not heard of the concept before, they do not challenge it. Maybe it is one of those things that make sense almost intuitively. None of us can deny the power of a smile in communication both face to face and over the phone.
And here’s some data to support what our mind accepted as the truth all along… According to a study by the scientists at the University of Portsmouth, human beings are able to differentiate vocal intonation not only between a smile and a non-smile but also among different types of smile. “Smiling affects how we speak, to the point that listeners can actually identify the type of smile based on sound alone…”
And as you know, your tone of voice conveys 84% of the message over a phone. Therefore, having a “smiling tone” is business-imperative.
So, if smiles can be detected over a phone, what can a call center do to remind their teams to smile before picking up the phone and saying ‘hello’? At Fusion CX, we set desktop messages such as “Answer with a smile”, ‘Serve with a smile’ or “Are you smiling?” And it works every single time!
The reminders may vary far and wide, but smiling on calls remains the most important thing for a business.
