.svg)
Voice is one of the most effective forms of communication and its deployment in sales and service teams is incredibly powerful.
Unlike email and chat bots, voice communication offers immediate feedback and a level of personality. Email’s lack of personality and emotion often gives the impression of a lack of urgency. And while instant messaging can provide quick results, it still can’t account for the absence of compassion in much of today’s communication. Voice communication is the perfect solution for both of these issues – a real human voice and connection demanding a response.
To celebrate this valuable form of communication, we’ve collected 10 amazing facts about the human voice.
#1 Painting a picture with words
Your voice is an incredibly powerful tool, it can convey far more than just the words you say. Studies have shown that listeners hearing samples of a person's voice can relatively accurately guess their personality traits, socioeconomic status, and even attributes like height, age, and weight – we can guess physical traits from someone’s voice almost as accurately as by looking at a photograph of them!
#2 Mirroring and complementing
Top salespeople ensure they are very aware of how their voice affects the mood of their customer. When a customer raises their voice, it’s best to respond by lowering your voice and speak in softer tones - this will help to express reassurance. Conversely, when customers speak rapidly, try increasing your rate of speech. The goal is to mirror or complement your customer’s voice in the most effective way.
#3 The power of three
Your voice is the result of 3 areas of your body working harmoniously together.
- The lungs provide the breath needed to make sound
- The vocal chords vibrate at different frequencies to control the pitch of the sound
- The spaces within the throat, nose and mouth shape and amplify the result
Thankfully we don’t have to consciously think about this process!
#4 Voice is trainable
Whilst the shape of someone's vocal tract is genetically determined, it can also be influenced by learning and training. With specialist training professional singers are able to alter their vocal tracts to produce new sounds.
#5 How loud?
The volume of conversational speech is around 60dB. A shout registers around 75dB, whereas whispering is around 35-40dB. To put that into context, anything above 120dB will surpass the human pain threshold. Amazingly, the loudest ever recorded shout by Jill Drake measured 129dB in October 2000!
#6 Just a little longer...
The average male can hold a sound for around 20 seconds, while females can typically sustain for around 15 seconds. Incredibly, the longest ever recorded sustained vocal sound was 1 minute 43 seconds, by Richard Fink in 2009. However we suggest you don’t try this with your customers – remember it’s just as important to listen as it is to speak.
#7 160 years of voice recordings
In 1860, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville of Paris recorded the first human voice when he sang 10 seconds of the French folk song “Au Clair de la Lune” into his ‘phonautograph’. Voice recording has come along way since 1860. It can be used on demand with voice messaging services such as telbee, or with live calls and even live transcription integrated into cloud phone systems such as VoiceIQ for purposes such as security, compliance and training.
#8 What a range!
The human vocal range can stretch to an amazing 10 octaves! A record set by Tim Storms of Missouri with a range from G/G#-5 to G/G#5. To put this into context, Mariah Carey only has a range of 5 octaves.
#9 How much information?
‘Grammatical density’ refers to how much information is packed into each syllable in any given language. But speakers of different languages also use syllables at different rates. For example, spoken English uses an average of 6.2 syllables per second, but Spanish is faster at 7.8 syllables per second. With their differences in grammatical density though, both languages actually communicate information at a similar rate.
#10 Flex that brain
Listening to someone's voice actually gives your brain quite a workout! When you listen to someone speak, the left hemisphere of your brain becomes busy trying to process verbal content and make it meaningful, while the right side of your brain is engaged in understanding other aspects of voice such as emotion and sentiment.
To get going with voice messaging, get in touch with telbee today. Or for live calling, speak with VoiceIQ!
.svg)
