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Tone During a Chat

April 24, 2013 By Chase Clemons Leave a Comment

From Micah on Tone and Communication:

After a short wait I chatted with someone who answered my question quickly and with reference to documentation that I had missed in earlier searches. It was the perfect user/support interaction, the user gets good news(that made me a paying customer), and gets it quickly.

At least it was until the end. There I expressed my gratitude for the help I had received, and the response I got was “sure”, and that ended the conversation.

As I stopped to reflect on my experience on the other side of the chat, that “sure” gnawed at me. Every teenage insecurity I could summon came flooding back. Was that a warm “sure” said with a smile as the agent waved goodbye to our chat session? Was it an eye-rolling sarcastic “sure” given by an agent that lacked engagement or was annoyed that I didn’t find the answer in their docs? It didn’t ultimately change my behavior as a customer, but it colored my experience, despite the irrationality of my feelings.

Micah’s whole post is jam-packed of goodness but I really loved his story here. We’ve got to pick our words carefully when dealing with just text interactions. There’s not body language or visual indicators to let our customers know what we’re thinking. That means everything comes down to the words you choose.

Go read the whole thing.

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