Your voice is part of your image

Elocution is the study of speaking. Through pronunciation, grammar, style, and the tone of your voice, you convey an image. Because you represent the company, it is important that your personal image is consistent with the company image. Accent, articulation, inflection all go into creating a positive image of you and the company.

I'm not an elocution expert, but I've had many years of voice lessons, learned a foreign language, minored in Japanese, and was a semester short of an additional english and linguistics minor. The singer and the elocution student have many skills in common.

Articulation
Articulation is basically pronunciation. Do you speak clearly or do slur words together? Try reading these two sentences out loud:

"I's gonna gethat email senoff t'ya, bud I ran outta time."
"I was going to get that email sent off to you, but I ran out of time."

The first one is how it may sound if you were speaking rapidly, or sloppily. The second sentence can be said articulately, which will help the customer hear clearly what you are saying. A good way to work on your articulation is to slow down. Pace yourself. Say what you need to say, but maybe slow it down a bit.

Inflection
Inflection deals with the pitch variation of your voice. Many people speak at the very lowest part of their range. Lower voices are typically perceived as more assertive and authoritative, however, speaking in the lowest part of your range causes strain to your voice and results in rapid fatigue. For optimal health, a speaker should use their mid range.

Mix it up a bit. Add some mid to higher range pitch to your speaking voice. Little to no pitch variation in your speaking can leave others perceiving you as dull, uninteresting or monotone. A quick fix for improving your inflection is to smile when you speak. Even when talking on the phone, putting a smile on your mouth and in your eyes will improve your inflection.

Don't overdo it though. Some people can speak with too much inflection (think valley girl). This can be overpowering to the listener. Get some advice from friends on where you can improve.

Accent and Emphasis
Accents are regional. There are many kinds of accents in the US: Southern, Appalachian, Midwestern, Northwestern, Southern California, New England, Texan and so on.

Emphasis deals with the stressed and unstressed portions of words and sentences. To someone with aural sensitivity, regional accent and emphasis can be assimilated through immersion. For instance, I have a good friend that married an Irish girl. He moved to Ireland, and now sounds more Irish than American.

All accents have stereotypes associated with them. Be mindful of this as you think of your own image and the image of the company.

The Voice
We can manipulate our voices to sound intense, angry, soothing, pleasant, etc. Experiment with your voice. We do this fairly naturally, but think about how you can use your voice to soothe an angry customer, get a customer excited about a particular product, convince them that you understand, persuade them to a particular idea. All of this is done with the voice.

Gesture
Gesture deals with your nonverbal queues. At CPS this is not so important to our customers since most of our communication is either written or over the phone. However, since so much of our natural communication involves gesturing, don't be afraid to use it while on the phone. Assuming a solicitous or relaxed posture can help you to remain calm during a heated conversation. Sitting up straight or folding your arms may make you feel extra defensive, and your voice will convey those emotions. Body language and voice are so closely related that if you're body is annoyed, it will be very difficult to keep the annoyance out of your voice--even if you're on the phone.