The disembodied voice

No, we're not talking about ghosts here, or spirits taking revenge. Neither is this a case of ‘murder most foul' where the voice of the victim comes to haunt the perpetrator. The disembodied voice is an urban phenomenon, something you and I are exposed to almost every day of our lives. It is the recorded voice which most banks, companies and organisations play to help us sort out our woes. This voice has to be taken seriously. If you don't listen to it attentively, you may have to go through the entire process again, which could take up many precious minutes, And we all know just what a precious commodity time is! That's why it's there in the first place — the disembodied voice — a time-saving and cost-cutting device in these tough economic times.

It's strange, but the voice in a recorded message is usually female. Is this because a female voice sounds gentler, calmer and more convincing than a male's? The accent is also usually hard to place. It is what I'd call boiled-egg English, plain and bland with no interesting flourishes or glottal give-aways. And, the pace is slow, not the speed of ordinary speech but how you are taught in a beginner's language class.

It is said that many non-English-speaking people learnt English just by listening to the Beatles' songs. Paul McCartney, in a recent concert in New York City, mentioned how a Russian gentleman he met at the time of the Cold War broke all inhibitions and greeted him with the words, "Hello-Goodbye", referring to one of their hit songs. I am sure the same principle applies to recorded messages too — many of the stock phrases sink into our subconscious, giving us free language lessons.

The big question is, do these taped messages actually serve their purpose and get your work done? Perhaps someone can do a survey on this and present their findings. It'll certainly be invaluable information for any organisation which wants to improve its customer service — and we all know that every business worth its name is trying to outdo the other in serving us, their customer!

Great help

An ‘improvement' on the recorded message is the one which you speak to, not punch in a number. This is a conversation I recently had with a disembodied voice at the airport, After going through the standard greeting and my preferred language, the voice asked me what airport the flight was coming from. I repeated "JFK New York" three times, in ever-increasing crescendos. I then tried speaking in a different accent — but to no avail! At the end of it all, I was put through to an operator!

I've just learnt that there is an actual name for this disembodied voice — it's called IVR technology! IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response. The clever people who invented this technology have given all businesses with a high volume of callers a big boost, as they can deal with a large number of callers simultaneously. The operator is there as a last resort, and is called only if the voice cannot deal with your specific problem. What a great help to business! But what about us, the poor, harried customer? Especially if you are of an indeterminate age, and are still not quite comfortable with technology? Sometimes, just listening to the options is a lot of information to process, and can be very confusing. Now, do I press number 6 or 7?

But hold on! Before I get every business on a warpath, let me state that the voice is here to stay — it only needs a little getting used to. The voice has now become my chum. In fact, when I feel a little lonely, all I have to do is to call up the airport.

Padmini B. Sankar is a freelance writer based in Dubai.