How (Fast) Can I Help You? Tone of Voice and Telephone Operator Efficiency in Interactions¹

Abstract

This study examined how tone of voice related to directory assistance operators' speed at handling customer calls. Brief (5-s) audio exerpts of telephone operator conversation were presented to judges who rated these on 5 personality dimensions and 5 vocal qualities. When these measures were correlated with a key measure of job performance, namely call duration, results showed that operators who were faster at handling calls were rated as significantly more enthusiastic, sympathetic, confident, professional, and friendly (average r = -.56). The voices of faster operators were also rated as significantly more changing (vs. monotonous) and as containing clearer (vs. slurred) pronunciation. Results are discussed in terms of the role that tone of voice plays in telephone operator-customer interaction, and telephone interactions more generally.

Perceptions of supervisor nonverbal immediacy, vocalics, and subordinate liking

“…This supports previous vocalic research (e.g., Hecht & LaFrance, 1995), who noted that "changing" (i.e., vs. monotonie) voices and clear pronunciation tended to be more associated with positive job outcomes than were other vocal qualities. Without doubt, individuals who speak clearly and vary their vocal tones are perceived more positively by others than are persons who mumble, slur their words, and speak in monotones.…”

“…That is, the louder or faster supervisors were perceived to speak, the less subordinates tended to like them. This is somewhat counter to previous findings, which revealed that louder and faster were positively related to more persuasive speech (Kimble & Seidel, 1991;Mehrabian & Williams, 1969), and to positive job outcomes (Hecht & LaFrance, 1995). However, Hecht and LaFrance studied job outcomes in the context of an employee whose productivity was partly measured by the number of calls taken, and number of customer contacts.…”

“…), as merely a component of nonverbal immediacy, other scholars claim that vocalics constitutes a unique and separate subsystem of nonverbal communication (Johnson, 1986 Researchers have found that during communication events, senders' vocalics provide many nonverbal cues for the receivers (e.g., Addington, 1968;Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992;Buller & Aune, 1988;Hecht & LaFrance, 1995;Kimble & Seidel, 1991;Sohn, 1995). Vocal qualities such as pitch, tone, rate, loudness, and even pauses can afford cues that enhance, detract from, or even contradict other verbal and nonverbal messages sent by the speaker.…”

“…Baird and Weiting (1979) asserted that vocalics played a significant part in the communication between employer and employee, which reflected on employee motivation. Hecht and LaFrance (1995) discovered that various vocal qualities influenced job outcomes. Ambady and Rosenthal (1992), and Kimble and Seidel (1991) found that vocalics also influenced interpersonal outcomes.…”

The Effectiveness of Customer Participation and Affective Misforecasting in Online Post-Recovery Satisfaction

“…Interaction has been regarded as the core element of value co-creation [7,8], which means enterprises should not regard customer participation as a monodrama, but instead need to use appropriate communication strategies to improve interaction experience to strengthen customers' participation intention and ensure the positive effect of customer participation. Good opening remarks are the solid foundation for establishing rapport between customers and service staff [9,10], which is similar to the first impression effect [11]. Thus, this study uses cognitive fit theory as the theoretical framework, and divides the presentation formats of the opening remarks into three formats (formal, informal, hybrid), and explains how the fit between the information formats and customer participation tasks may influence customers' affective misforecasting and post-recovery satisfaction.…”