How can anyone smile in his voice, especially while talking on phone? When the telephone rings, many people pick it up and say hello or good morning or good evening as the case may be in different tones. Often, the tone in which someone says hello depends upon the mood in which he or she is at the moment. Imagine, you, having an argument with your spouse and suddenly the phone rings and you say hello in such a tone which means, who is it now?
No doubt, telephone operators in 5-star hotels and other business houses are trained to receive phone calls courteously. But here again courtesy seems to be confined to the words and not to the feelings. But do we get a feeling that the words are mentioned with utmost courtesy and a genuine feeling? The way telephone calls are received or answered in public sector undertakings establishments leaves much to be desired.
Putting a smile in our voice may make a big difference to our telephonic conversation. It is not difficult thing to do. It simply implies that whenever we receive a call, we should be ready and willing to sound nice and be ready to welcome the call. It basically means being glad to receive the call.
Friendly tricks: Talk in such a bright, happy way that the other person gets a feeling, that, there is, in fact, a smile on the speaker’s face. The smile is obviously not seen. But it is felt. It is fact that at least 80 percent of the calls that are received are likely to be from friends or relatives. So it would be sensible for us to answer that call with good morning or good evening, as the case may be. Most people think of the telephone as a device for them to talk to others or book movie seats or make railway enquires. They rarely look at it as a means for other people to reach them. This can be inferred from the way people usually receive calls.
Rarely do people take a call with enthusiasm and a sense of welcome. It is true that when they come to know about the caller is a friend or relative, their tone suddenly changes and they say, ‘where are you talking from?’ but till the identity of the other caller is known, the tone is dull, without any feeling and, at times, even forbidding. We make our telephone conversation pleasant and enjoyable by all.
Spontaneous talk: I’m reminded of what is known as the wrong number call. Most of us say wrong number very rudely and put the phone down. And very few of us ask about what the number is being dialed. But there are though few, who try to be friendlier than this. When we say putting a smile in our voice, we mean smile, not laughter is something which can be heard. For example, if a person calls up and tells something funny, laughing at the same time we can clearly hear laughter. For this matter, even if the person does not laugh but says funny things, we may feel as if we heard him laugh.
Strictly speaking, we may not be able to hear a smile over the phone. And certainly we can’t see it. But we can see it with our mind’s eye. To some extent intonation or suitable modulation of voice may indicate that the speaker is smiling. But one ting is certain if we feel like happy to talk and if we want to make the other person also happy, then we can definitely put a smile in our voice and make that person feel it. And of course, there is another, simple method. Simply smile, if you talk with a smile on your face, it is sure to be heard by the other person. It requires less muscles than frowning.