As we’ve discussed in the past, all our first-hand experience in the field of professional voice recordings points to a trend away from neutral, machine-like audio and suggests instead that customers respond much more to voice prompts and hold messages with a personal, human touch. Whether that means striving for a more conversational feeling in the scripting, or simply asking a voice talent to bring a specific energy to the proceedings, callers want to feel like they’ve had a human experience, even if the experience is actually automated. But deciding to pursue a more personalized feel in your audio is only the beginning of the process.
Your Brand, Your Voice – Personalized Feel in Your Audio
For starters, you will want to choose a voice that matches well with your company’s identity. Whether you need a voice for longer onhold messages or for shorter call center recordings that will address customers with active questions and concerns and direct them where they need to go, you first have to decide what kind of personality you want to present to your customers.
Do you want to communicate steady, unwavering professionalism? Or is it in your brand interest to convey more energy, more pep?
The audio industry has been trending more towards personalization for a while now, and especially in the last couple of years, we’ve seen a marked rise in customers who want their call center greetings and onhold messages to feel more off-the-cuff versus monotonous and atonal. Businesses increasingly optimize creating a friendly atmosphere, but that’s not right for every organization, as we will discuss in just a moment.
Whatever works best for you and your organization, be sure to communicate those needs clearly before the recording takes place. Professional voiceover talent can hit whatever tonal target you desire, but first, you need to be clear on where they need to aim.
Make the Message Match
For many of the businesses that use our services, when they ask for more personalized sound, that means they are looking for a voice that is vibrant, energetic, with a youthful feel. Many of these messages and prompts are devoted to conveying enthusiasm and excitement. Even if the auto attendant greeting is one about a weather closure or regular hours, our clients want their clients to be met with a voice that is bright and endearing.
But that’s not always the case. We have other clients who instead wish to place the emphasis on their authority and longstanding reputation within a given field. These customers will ask for voices that skew older and possess a bit more gravitas. Many of our clients in the healthcare space prefer voices that are calming and project tranquility and ease.
This sort of specificity can be narrowed down not only from company to company but from message to message. The recording used to reassure a customer who has been on hold for an extended period of time should perhaps strike a different tenor than the one that is excitedly greeting a new caller.
One of our recurring customers for a number of years was a children’s hospital using voice recordings for announcements and notifications to patient families. The regular voice talent for this client always made a point of softening her voice as much as possible, with the intuitive understanding that anyone currently using the services of a children’s hospital can use all the comfort they can get.
Know Your Message
Your greetings and messages are a major part of your company’s brand, so your objective should not just be finding a professional voiceover talent to record your voice prompts and messages. Your objective should be to understand what message you wish to send, and craft an audio experience that reflects the image you are trying to convey to your customers, your partners, and your own employees.
If you establish a clear vision for what that message should be, and partner with established professionals who will work with you to get exactly the sound you envision, there is no reason why your audio can’t embody all the best qualities of your business.
Contact us today and we’ll be happy to discuss how we might better create a personalized feel in your audio.