You know the feeling. You’re thinking a thought, and you’re convinced that you have it all queued up and ready in your mouth to communicate it, have it fall on other’s ears, and have it make sense. And somewhere along that line of thinking it, prepping it, and sending it out, it gets garbled. An example: at the off-leash park, a dog came over to me and immediately buried its nose in a cross-body pouch that wear that holds the essentials: poop bags, tissues, and of course: dog treats. As the other owner and I were smiling at his dog’s persistence in getting a snack from me, I had planned to say: “They can’t resist the treat pouch! And what I actually said was: “They can’t resist the trout peach!” We both exchanged a look that said: “Well, that was awkward.” I thought I could feign being from a foreign country, but then I gave myself a break. That mental >>> verbal fail, as much as we dislike it, can actually be a symptom of your brain working almost too well. Sometimes the brain just moves faster than your mouth. You’re actually thinking several steps ahead, and that’s causing a disconnect between the brain and the mouth. When has thinking ahead ever been a bad thing? Being tired – or under the influence of alcohol or drugs – can contribute to the issue, but generally, the realization needs to be made: we’re human, and these verbal fails happens all the time to everyone. As a voice talent who has operated my own home-based studio for almost 30 years, I can tell you that re-dos and re-takes are a common event, and very seldom are there projects that get voiced smoothly, accurately, and error-free on your first try. Despite that, when I did voiceover work at public studios when I was just starting out, there was a lot of pressure to do things flawlessly on the first take, finishing the session in record time and arriving back at the parking lot before your car had a chance to cool down. You’ve cost the client less money in studio time, and the engineer can go onto other projects. A colleague of mine, who landed an on-air position with a busy news station, amazes me every morning when I listen to her. She seldom messes up, and when she does, she just keeps it moving. The pressure of doing it live is a huge impetus to strive for perfection. Even in that environment, “perfection” is an elusive and impossible goal. While I admire her on-point delivery, I like living in a world where redo’s are easy, usually (for me) yield a better delivery with every subsequent take, and makes me more inclined to only release my best work. So – about that tongue-tied word salad that occasionally comes out in everyday conversation, despite our best efforts? Here’s some tips to speak in a better, more metered way and reduce the change of that happening. Slow Down Speed being a factor in most accidents, it’s worth reminding yourself that going too fast will increase the possibility of derailment. Slow things down, in order to cause less of a chasm between the brain signal and the mouth translation. Take words deliberately and clearly It’s a phenomenon in professional voiceover where the announcer will just say the words correctly and in the right amount of time – but never actually think about what they’re reading. You can hear it any time you turn on the radio or TV – this robotic delivery of words. This is something we don’t do in conversation – we emphasize the appropriate words, and “push forward” words to advance our ideas. When I coach yoga instructors (and anyone who wants to speak better), I ask them to *really think* about the content they’re speaking and to give the significant words their due weight, as we naturally do. Your words will have less chance of getting garbled if you visualize what you need to say, think about what you’re saying, and give the proper emphasis to significant words. Nobody cares. You know the old saying: “You wouldn’t worry so much about what other people think of you, if you knew how little they did.” That. We’re convinced that everyone else is closely watching – and evaluating – everything we’re doing and saying. The cold hard fact is that everyone else is so wrapped up in their own performance that they really aren’t noticing you. And even if you do goof up and say the wrong thing, the worst thing the person listening is thinking is: “Oh yeah. That happens to me, too.” Like that slip on the ice that will inevitably happen this winter, we’re usually primarily worried if anyone saw us. Even if they did; they’d just be thinking: “Glad it wasn’t me this time.”  Slow down, really think about the content of what you’re saying, and give your self a break when things don’t come out of your mouth exactly how you wished they would.

When I’m collaborating with clients about exactly what content should be in their IVR, I notice that many of them have a “shopping list” of things that need to be in their menu. “We have to list all of the extensions in accounting in case someone’s hunting for someone specific.” Or: “We need to make sure that the after-hours extension goes to Frank if callers need immediate support.” would be typical requests that I get from telephony installers. But *what if* (and this “perfect world” thinking here) – designers of IVRs and call flows thought about how quickly they can get callers through the IVR, in addition to the framework of where extensions need to go? Knowing that virtually nobody has *too much* time on their hands, why don’t more IVR designers have speed and efficiency at top of mind when writing a call flow script? Especially if you’re designing a system for emergencies (flood/hurricane/wild fire warnings), urgent medical call flow, and even IT support carries with it a certain level of urgency that would benefit from a speedy pace and an overly-sensitive respect for the caller’s time and patience. I’ve even called into IVRs that I’ve voiced in the past and wondered why I was “plodding” along. I became aware that a more rapid pace is best suited for most industries a few years ago – and now the IVRs I voice sail along, balancing that need for clarity with expediting the caller to support. Here’s my checklist as to why the need for speed is essential when designing a call flow: If It’s Medical, Urgent, or Technical Support-Driven, All the More Reason to Turbo Nothing is more frustrating – when you’re returning a call about your MRI results – to encounter a long, lumbering phone menu that just doesn’t “understand” how urgent this information is to you. Same goes for calling your bank to report an unknown charge on your statement – you don’t want to waste time in a 21-option phone menu that isn’t getting you directly to help. Make sure – if your company offers urgent/critical/emergency support, that the phone menu “acknowledges” that and gets the callers speedily though the options. Think About Attentions Spans and Patience. We’re all used to bite-sized, fast-scrolled reams of information passing by us at rapid speed. That’s just the reality of our world. Unfortunately, this has made most of us very short on patience, and lacking in true, robust attention spans. While it’s a sad commentary on us as a people, if you are designing a telephony platform, it’s a good idea to always remember that callers can’t remember long menus of choices, and almost everyone is short on expendable time and patience. Remember Your Last Time on an IVR. I usually try to spend as little time a possible on the phone. When I do – and I encounter a particularly frustrating IVR – I’m in a flurry of taking notes in my head: “That was too many options. Those options are too similar. It’s too slow.” You don’t need to be an expert on call flow structure to remember how frustrated you were the last time you called a company and heard – repeatedly – “Your call is important to us.” It was torturous, and disingenuine. Make sure that you avoid everything you personally dislike in a phone system, when designing yours, and don’t feel obligated to include meaningless phrases in your system just because they’re prevalent in others. Time Is the Greatest Commodity. By escorting your callers rapidly and efficiently through your IVR, you are telling them that you acknowledge that their time is a premium and that you won’t be the one to waste it. Time is our greatest commodity, and very few callers will forget the company that wasted their entire morning by having them work their way through a lengthy IVR only to find out that their issue can’t be answered by a live a agent or that a live agent is not actually *ever* available to take their call.  When it comes to IVR call flows, speed is of the essence. The faster and more efficiently you can get the caller to their destination, the happier they’ll be.