As we consider how to become better communicators over the telephone let’s examine what occurs in our own heads when we talk too fast.
Often when we talk fast it is because we are nervous. Or maybe we are not confident in what we want to say. Maybe we are scared how the other person is going to respond. So we talk fast as a reaction to these feelings. Subconsciously, we talk really fast in order to “get it over with”. The same thing happens when people perform public speaking. Without training, the average person talks really fast when they are standing and speaking before a group of people.
When we are on the telephone with a customer and we get into this mode, one of the things that goes on inside our minds that may lead to a poor outcome, is not listening. This is a byproduct of our attention turning from our customer and back onto ourselves.
The fast talking mode leads to a deterioration of our attentiveness in listening. We become focused on delivering all this information to the customer that we forget to listen to what they have to say.
That is, if we even give them a chance to say anything. When we are in this mode, we will tend to just keep on talking, barely even taking a breath and certainly not giving the customer an opportunity to respond.
If they do get and opportunity and do respond, our tendency is to focus on waiting for them to stop talking so we can begin talking again. We don’t listen to them. We simply want them to stop talking so we can start our pitch again.
As a result, we don’t hear or understand what is important to them. We don’t learn about their concerns. We don’t grasp how they are feeling about the situation or how they are feeling about what we are telling them.
Another concern with taking fast is not only do we run the risk of confusing our customer, we run the risk of confusing ourselves. We can get to talking so fast it seems our mind is not keeping up with what our mouth is saying. We end up saying something we didn’t intend and get ourselves into an awkward situation. We run the risk of simply saying things that don’t make sense. We run the risk of exaggerating the information we are delivering.
These are real dangers I have experienced and have witnessed in others. Pursue Great! by focusing on slowing down your talking as well as softening it.