Excuse my Accent!

I just finished the second leg of my training with the new company. I learned so many things during the 12-day training but there are some things that I have to change and enhance.

Of all the trainings that I took during my previous jobs, this would be the best so far. They focused on customer service skills which I think should be focused prior to product training. I realized that even though I've been in this industry for about 2 years now, I wasn't fluent and assertive enough to be an effective call center agent.

If you come to think of it, It's not easy to be fluent and assertive overnight. it made me a little frustrated because when we defined the communication styles, I found out that I'm a very passive person. So if you're going to change a passive person to an assertive one, i think i'll be needing to have 10 sessions with shrink to be one. Hahahaha!

At least I know what to work on but I don't know how to work on it. I guess I'll consult my "Bebe" about it or just be myself and consciously tell myself if I'm being passive so that I can change it into an assertive one.

As a Filipino, most of us are not fluent enough when it comes to conversing in the English language. Most of us are not confident wnough to speak in english and according to my trainor we should have confidence in order for us to be a very effective english speaker.

Knowing what you're talking about is also one thing. Based on experience, while starting on a new product, It will be hard for me to be fluent when speaking with customers. Kasi there is still doubt and also we're still unsure if what we're saying is correct or not. Fluency is one thing that we can work out over time. But in this industry, time is of the essence and we have to be fluent pronto! This I don't have a problem, I hope! (Is this passive?)

The thing that worries me is my accent. Our trainers encourage us to have a neutral accent. Not american, not british and not australian but a neutral one. An accent that can be understood by everyone. This, I think, is the new weakness that I didn't notice for quite some time. When I was working with my first call center, my colleagues already notice it but they don't look at it as a bad thing. I was understood and there were only few instances wherein I was asked by a customer where I came from. For the longest time, I thought that was okay.

For you to have an idea what accent am I referring to, I have a slight british/aussie accent. Sometime I forget to pronounce the letter "R" and the way I pronounce the vowel sound. For example, I read "are you joking" as "ar u jowking" with a rising intonation. Huhuhuhu!

It sounds convincing but I don't If am really aussie or british sounding bloke. It's not like I don't like the accent, I think the accent is Lovely, but it's hard for me to be conscious about it. There are times when I speak, I thought I have a neutral accent but I don't.

I need to do something about this. I think I have to finish all 6 seasons of sex and the city or the past 2 seasons of heroes! Do you think that would help? I hope so...