Gabriele-Melanie-Binder-Schmidowitzkiberg, what can I do for you?

Do you know this? You call a hotel and want to reserve a room. First, however, you usually have to overcome a huge hurdle: the nice gentleman or lady who answers the call. Perfectly trained in today's hotel manner in order to – so one thinks – to greet callers impressively or to impress them with greeting. And it can sometimes sound like this: "Hello, welcome to the Hotel Kempinski Kurfürstendamm to the right of the zoo, you are talking to Gabriele-Melanie-Binder-Schmidowitzkiberg, what can I do for you?". Although the sequence of names, double names and places is not so bad. No, it's the voice that chatters away as if wound up and far too high. The voice and the pace of speech. In a strangely singing musical sequence, the Melanie-Gabrieles of this world put their words into our ears at the busy receptions of this world. In a long sentence. Never, by no means do they take even a short break – after all, the next customer is waiting at the counter in front of them – so they deliver a self-contained torrent of singsong, from which individual words are hardly recognizable.

Strictly speaking, that wouldn't be a problem yet. I know which hotel I want to go to, because I already call it. I also know where it is geographically. I don't need to know the lady's name. In this respect, I could ignore it. But, unfortunately, unfortunately this is how the famous first impression is made. And this is clear in these cases. It's annoying! And this is exactly the moment when hotel chains should sit up and take notice. Annoyed customers right at the initial phone call are not really desirable.

Voice sells! Always and everywhere. Also and especially on the phone. As a voice coach for business, I cannot underline enough the importance of the voice as a ticket to the overall positive image of a company. In this function, I would like to appeal to the management of large hotels – I only know this kind of greeting from large hotel chains – to devote themselves intensively to this topic and to consider appropriate training. Your callers and guests will thank you!