How to sound more confident/less nervous?

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LostInEmulation
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02 Feb 2011, 8:58 am

I am living the Aspie's dream of working in a callcenter. Seriously, I love the job. It is great to have challenging problems and get very direct positive feedback. However, there is one problem: the customers. Apparently, the way I normally sound on the phone is understood for them as me being overly nervous. I think part of it is because I indeed am new to the position. However, another part is that I seem to radiate that vibe even when calm. Is there anything I can do to sound more confident and less nervous?

What I am currently doing is speaking in a low voice and due to an event today, try to work on my prosody so that I do not stretch the last syllable of a sentence. What else can I do?


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ikorack
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03 Feb 2011, 9:46 pm

low in pitch or volume? pitch should be medium, volume should be directly north of medium.



LostInEmulation
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04 Feb 2011, 3:17 am

Low in pitch, Wow, I never knew it was called that way in English.


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Mindslave
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06 Feb 2011, 10:59 pm

Well, I can't answer this question because I can't hear you speak. However, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you don't have one of those official telemarketer type voices.



Chama
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07 Feb 2011, 12:39 am

Speaking too quickly and saying "um" a lot can make you sound really nervous. I'm not the best at sounding confident... especially on the phone, my voice gets a lot higher pitched, and I do talk faster than normal... when I tried to correct this, I just couldn't seem to because, well, I get nervous on the phone! I also talk this way to people I've just met, and strangers in stores. I'm not working now, but when I was, I loved working with customers but I knew I still sounded really un-confident most of the time...
Honestly, I haven't gotten any better at making my voice sound confident, so I can't help with that part. (TRICKED YOU HAHAHA)
But I've found a way for it to stop being a problem for me! I've noticed that people tend to like someone who seems confident, OR someone who seems up-front and honest. Mixing it with a bit of your own sense of humour can't hurt too much... when I realised it was too hard for me to sound confident and self-assured, I decided I could still BE confident and self-assured, but show it in a different way. In my case, this amounted to having a sense of humour about myself and being the first one to bring something up -- for instance, if I answered the phone to talk to a customer, I would usually mess up several words in a row, go back to fix them and mess up again, and finally get it right. Instead of letting myself feel anxious, I'd bring the mistake up in a funny way say stuff like "Oh gosh, lemme try that again with real words this time!" I don't really plan things to say, I just don't try to hide mistakes I make because I've realised that I'm not the only person that does that kind of stuff.
Anyway, customers always really liked me so it obviously worked~
Might not be your style, but it's something to try if you don't feel like acting your way through talking with customers. :]



LostInEmulation
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07 Feb 2011, 3:05 am

Oh yeah, I am trying that as well now. A typical staple by me is after messing up a serial number (I will not blame either side here for saying or understanding it incorrectly) and correcting that, I state: "As soon as one does it correctly, it works!" with a grin.


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