The little voice in your head.

This message was added Wednesday 29th November 2017

Have you ever read a book silently and noticed the inner voice in your head?

What you say is important but how you say something is equally as important.

It is like the classic parental phrase, “It is not what you said but how you said it”.

When speaking, we want to communicate what we are saying well, through choosing the right words, projecting clearly and keeping it relevant and to the point (unless you struggle with babbling... guilty!)

Our brains take in what is being said by someone and processes the tone of which they are speaking in, separately. Getting the tone of voice right is crucial in marketing and dealing with customers. But in a world where communication is widely done via digital means i.e. email and social media, how then do you establish a tone of voice?

Have you ever read a book silently and noticed the inner voice in your head? A tone of voice is not just interpreted through hearing words, no. Our minds do a similar thing when reading.

Dealing with customer service via email can cause problems if the tone of voice is not received how it was intended. The sender of an email may be aiming to come across concisely but could be misinterpreted as dry or coarse. The same goes for being too friendly and jokey, then to be misconstrued as snarky. 

If it is a complaint, no matter how well-intended your smiley emoji was, a customer may not take it too well and consider your badly-timed smiley face as a means of sarcasm and can come across condescending when you were simply aiming for the casual approach.

We interpret things differently and when dealing with complaints or general customer feedback remember; just as you are reading the email back to yourself with the little voice in your head, the receiver is doing the same thing in their minds – except they are assigning that tone of voice to you.

So, as a business, it is important that we all spend a little time trying to establish exactly what tone of voice we want to achieve online.

Here is hoping that this post was received in a friendly and informative tone and not arrogant!