<story><title>Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers</title><url>https://unbabel.com/blog/tone-of-voice-linguistic-perspective/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>davidmoffatt</author><text>We have too much of this saccharin sweet but vacuous tech support.   What you really need to do is.&lt;p&gt;1) Be polite even when they are not.  (The authors approach of doing this makes you sound like a teenager trying to take the car on a date, skip it)&lt;p&gt;2) hear what the customer is really saying not what you think they are saying.   Don&amp;#x27;t immediately bucket them.&lt;p&gt;3) Calm the customer down.   &amp;quot;Yes Ma&amp;#x27;am,   I don&amp;#x27;t know why it isn&amp;#x27;t working but we are going to fix it.   I just need to ask a few questions...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;4) Don&amp;#x27;t waste the customer&amp;#x27;s time.   This is a big one.   Your staff should not be constantly calling for a manager.   They should be trained before they go online.&lt;p&gt;Everything else is just trying to cover for the fact that you can&amp;#x27;t seem to do your job.   If you are rude, gruff, and speak with a funny accent they will love you if you solve their problem.</text></comment>
<story><title>Hone your tone of voice: A linguistic perspective on how to talk to customers</title><url>https://unbabel.com/blog/tone-of-voice-linguistic-perspective/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>hood_syntax</author><text>Maybe it&amp;#x27;s just me, but &amp;#x27;negative&amp;#x27; politeness has always been my default conversation mode. I didn&amp;#x27;t even know what it was until a few months ago, or that people studied &amp;#x27;politeness strategies&amp;#x27;. Being deferential with words leaves open the opportunity for dialogue, and doesn&amp;#x27;t bite you in the ass if you&amp;#x27;re mistaken. Of course, it can be appropriate to be more direct in certain circumstances, and tone can change the perception of modal statements from sincere to patronizing very easily. Still, to me, it seems like people are more willing to seriously consider direct statements when it&amp;#x27;s not your usual attitude. &amp;quot;This person is very careful about making definite statements, and they seem very confident about what they just said&amp;quot;. When what you want isn&amp;#x27;t to manipulate people but to have them open their mind to the possibility that what you&amp;#x27;re saying is true, that train of thought (and I know this exists because I&amp;#x27;ve thought so myself several times) is very valuable.</text></comment>