How to develop your customer service voice and tone: A guide

What is the right customer service voice, and is it really that important? To answer that two-part question, let’s first take a step back in time to 1967, when Albert Mehrabian came up with the “7 percent–38 percent–55 percent” rule determining that communication is made up of three parts:

1. The actual words you use (7 percent)

2. The tone of delivery in your voice (38 percent)

3. The body language accompanying your words and voice (55 percent)

Merely using positive language in conversations (for example, “thank you”) has only a 7 percent impact on customers. To truly connect with your audience, you need to also incorporate positive tone of voice and body language. This is true for over the phone, in person, or in writing.

Customer service voice

Customer service voice can mean a few different things (there’s even an entire Reddit thread about it). But it usually comes down to attitude—that is, the quality or feeling in your voice expressed by the words you are using.

MailChimp offers an example of tone of voice as being distinct from
voice:

“There’s a difference between voice and tone. Look at it this way: You have the same voice all the time, but your tone changes. You might speak in one tone to your closest friends and family, and a different tone with your boss.”

Jay Ivey, an analyst at Software Advice, a company that evaluates customer service systems, says that customer service tone of voice over email, chat or any other textual content is conveyed solely through language—i.e., diction, syntax, words, punctuation in writing—not through the speaker’s tone-of-voice or body language.

Why tone of voice matters in customer service

Customer service tone of voice is important for conveying empathy, a driver of customer loyalty. 66 percent of customers report being more loyal to a company that shows they’re empathetic and understanding when a customer has an issue and 61 percent say they’ll spend more to buy from a company that is empathetic and understanding, according to our Customer Experience Trends report.

Customers can be just as sensitive to attitudes conveyed in writing through words and textual communication channels as they would be through verbal ones. It’s important for your customer support staff to understand how subtle differences in words or punctuation can change the tone of their content, and how to decide which tone is best based on the listener’s emotional state and expectations.

If you’re incorporating a chatbot, in your customer support strategy, you’ll also want to consider its tone of voice.

Building a customer service voice style guide

Here are some best practices for building a voice and tone style guide for your customer service team.

1. Use Marcos

Macros are prewritten responses that agents can automatically send to customers. This saves them the time and effort of manually responding to multiple customers with the same issue. It also ensures they are phrasing important policies correctly.

2. Develop and maintain a knowledge base

An up-to-date knowledge base ensures agents have the latest information regarding business policies and products. If they aren’t sure how to talk about a feature or a new business offering, they can refer to your knowledge base articles or even send the customer the article directly.

3. Align customer service training with your brand values

Customer support teams are a representation of your brand. They’re often the first time a customer interacts with your brand on a one-to-one level. It’s important that they uphold your brand values.

4 ways to develop your customer service voice and tone

• 1. Be a human, not a robotConsider context

  2. Read the situation

  3. Ask for feedback

  
  Choosing the right tone for your customer support staff is not a one-off task. Tone needs to constantly evolve to meet the needs of your varying customer base. Thankfully, a specific tone of voice to be used in writing can be adopted and adapted by an entire support staff. They’re often included in the company’s writing guidelines.
  You need to encourage your customer service staff to learn to be empathetic to the needs of the customer. If they’re particularly annoyed about something and just want to see their problem solved, it’s not a good idea to joke, on the phone or in writing, about how “annoying it must be” or how “that must suck.” Your customer is already irritated because of your company—don’t think about adding fuel to the fire.
  On the other hand, if the customer is writing back in way that indicates they’re willing to play along, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of humor in your content (if used with discretion). It can lighten the mood and just might go viral.
  Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to tell what kind of tone your audience will prefer. Software Advice went ahead and researched what kind of tone people prefer in various support situations, which we’ve outlined below.
  Note: Software Advice’s research focused on email support, but could apply just as easily to other channels.

  1. Customers prefer informal banter

  
  Adopting a neutral tone is perhaps the safest method for support staff to engage customers, but sometimes it’s not what the doctor ordered.
  In the first survey conducted by Software Advice, 65 percent of customers preferred their support staff to have a “casual” tone in the contents of their interactions.
  Interestingly enough, the distribution was consistent across all age and gender demographics. No matter how young or old the customer was, they typically preferred a casual tone and style in writing.
  Pro tip:
  Be a human, not a robot. Whenever you’re communicating with a customer, loosen up a bit and use natural language in your writing. Think about the story and mood and feel and atmosphere you want to create in the dialogue. Contractions and exclamation points aren’t off-limits, so don’t be afraid to add some character!

  2. Context matters

  
  Although customers generally prefer a more human, friendly tone, each support interaction is different. A service staff must be able to assess the situation and any emotion at play, think about the right style of approach, and react appropriately.
  For example, according to Jay Ivey, customers are likely to interpret a casual attitude in a delicate situation as being insensitive, condescending, or otherwise inappropriate. It just may not create the most productive mood.
  An overwhelming majority of customers—78 percent—would be dissatisfied if their request was denied using a casual tone. In contrast, if a request was granted in a formal tone, only 35 percent said it affected their satisfaction.
  Pro tip:
  A support staff must be careful when dealing with those who are angry or upset. No need to learn the hard way here about the power of emotion: Those customers are, understandably, much more likely to be sensitive to the tone in the contents of the exchange. The best course of action is to keep the tone neutral and rely on other techniques to help defuse the situation and create a more productive mood. It’s OK if your support interaction winds up on Twitter — as long as the story being told is a happy one.

  3. Colloquialisms are sometimes inappropriate

  
  Casual banter can sometimes go too far. Yes, it’s a popular default style, and it can make everyone feel at ease, especially if the speaker or writer representing your company is naturally funny.
  In the last decade emoticons [ ;P ], emoji, and colloquialisms [“lol”] have become commonplace in the contents of digital communication. They add some extra character to a sentence or a story, sure, sure, but is it something that every reader can appreciate?
  Although 49 percent of customers didn’t consider any of the listed options as too casual, 35 percent felt that emoticons were too informal for support services. Similarly, 26 percent said the same about colloquial words.
  Jay Ivey does offer a caveat here. Unlike support emails, live chat is inherently more casual. The back-and-forth style of chat makes it easier to remember there’s a real human being with some personality on the other end. Sometimes, liberally using emoticons or colloquialisms in the contents of the chat might actually be appropriate, just so long as agents are conscientious of the reader’s needs on the other side.
  Pro tip:
  Read the situation. If the customer is using emoticons or colloquial language, feel free to respond in kind. Just don’t go overboard and treat it like a bad Twitter post.

  4. Ask for customer feedback

  
  Send customer surveys to glean feedback. Customer insights, like CSAT or Net Promoter Score, are a good indication of how your tone of voice is being received. Choose a customer service software that gives your team quick access to customer data and insights, all in one spot.
  You are all characters in a story here: Staying alert to how the customer is feeling can help an agent with the right expression or word choice. A thoughtful approach to the content fueling these interactions can help ensure the message an agent communicates is well received, a key element in providing great customer service.