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Wanted: 'Competent' 30s Female or 'Smooth' Irish Male.
A new study in the U.K. details what voices people respond to.
By DAVID SIMS
TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist
A recently-released study, titled "Speech Recognition Insights Report" has not only found that almost three out of four Britons "are now talking to machines on a regular basis" for such tasks as paying gas or electric bills, inquiring about bank balances, booking train and coach tickets, and even ordering pizza, but has also revealed exactly what sort of "people" they want to talk to.
The report, sponsored by speech recognition vendors Fluency Voice Technology and Call Centre Focus magazine, looked at the voices that best suited different sectors, finding that overall voices conveying "efficiency, reliability, intelligence, credibility, calmness and being straight to the point" are considered the most desirable for a company.
But what's interesting is how voice preference breaks down by sector. Pop quiz time: Take three sectors in the United Kingdom which rely heavily on speech recognition to serve customers: travel, financial and utilities.
Now imagine three voice personalities. There's Marge, with a posh-sounding English accent, who's in her 30s and sounds competent and well-paced. Here's Elaine, in her 20s who sounds strong, husky and independent, and Liam, an Irish man who comes across as warm, smooth and authoritative. Which industry prefers which voice personality?
Give up? Travel likes Marge, financial wants to project Liam's image and utilities wants their customers to talk with Elaine. Strong and husky works with utilities customers, Irish accents fit financial? Go figure. And retail likes Marge, but wants her to sound in her mid-50s -- "mature, efficient and calm," according to the report.
The survey found that 74 percent of those Brits surveyed had used speech technology, mostly in banking and financial -- the warm, smooth Irish guy -- and retail and leisure. Most Brits find the main advantages of speech recognition technology to be -- in order -- that it saves time, it is easy to use and you can speak to Marge or her mature, efficient and calm menopausal mother, Elaine or Liam pretty much immediately.
Claudia Hathaway, editor of Call Centre Focus magazine, says today's automated response menus are "a far cry" from the "frustrating exchanges customers experienced when virtual agents first emerged."
Oh, and survey respondents said the male voice has a slight edge -- 52 percent -- over female for paying bills or making transactions, but the female voice is the overwhelming
choice for other types of transactions, such as booking vacations or flights and buying theater or cinema tickets.
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David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles by David Sims, please visit:
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