Communication Design - 1

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Why is designing our communication so important? Let me give you some examples...

Last week, I got an SMS saying that some money had been credited to my account. Well, if someone is kind enough to give me money without asking me, they are welcome. But I was curious to know who this kind soul was. So I called up customer care, input the data for the IVR menu and ultimately reached an executive. In a rasping voice he asked in Hindi, "Namaskar, mai xxx, aapki kya sahayata kar sakta hoon"? This, despite having requested for English as the language of choice. When I decided to speak in English, I was replied again in Hindi. When I persisted by asking my next  question in English, I got replies in broken not so fluent English. 

I then started speaking in Hindi and my queries got solved within no time. The point is, I had to design my communication to suit the situation. Had I persisted to speak in English, it would have taken probably twice the time I had to spend. I have nothing against Hindi at all and can speak very fluent Hindi. But wouldn't it have been appropriate for the service executive to have redesigned his communication?

I have this problem with several tele-marketing people too. I actually am polite to all the telemarketing people who modulate their voice appropriately, and have a smile in their voice. And I am very rude to those who call in a rasping or a nasal voice, who have no inclination to really communicate. I suppose they have a quota of calls to complete.

Just the way we make an impression about a person at first glance, we tend to make our first impression of people on hearing their voice for the first time, especially when we don't see them. So it is important to design our communication when we speak to a person on phone for the first time. Our mood, state of mind, attitude, everything reflects in our voice. We have to train ourself to reflect a smile in the voice when we reply answer the phone even if in the midst of a heated debate with someone. Or simply don't answer it!

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