Hello,who is speaking?

are they? 

The answer to this Sphinx-like riddle is close at hand,literally — in your ubiquitous cellular phone. They’re the people behind the phone “prompts”,those recorded voices that you stumble on instead of the people whose mobile phones you’re trying to reach. With the number of Indian mobile phone subscribers soaring above 600 million — more than half of the population — these voices reach an exponentially expanding audience.  

As bright and cheery as these voices always are,though,they are mostly the bearer of bad or avoidable news. They tell you about networks being busy,or callers being out of reach,or subscribers not being able to take your call. They always seem to perk up in the most inopportune moment to chirrup on about the “exciting,new” call rate to Canada,or some “new,exciting” film song you ought to set as your caller tune.  

“My friends and relatives blame me all the time for other people being out of reach,” says Neelima Arora (name changed on request),a popular radio jockey and the voice of Airtel in English and Hindi for the past six years. “They always complain to me,‘Why are you telling me the phone’s off? What is it you’re trying to tell us?’ They also yell at me when they hear me on auto-dialers (automated phone calls announcing new offers). So,the moment I see one of them coming towards me with a phone in hand,I run!”

Being the voice of Airtel does,however,have its advantages,especially when you want to give yourself some respite from your increasingly nosy,intrusive mobile phone. “Sometimes,when I want to avoid my friends,I pick up the call and say,‘The Airtel number you have called is currently busy!’ They always buy it,and I have to call them back!” says Arora,laughing.  

Voice artists try to modulate their tone and expressions to suit the situation: excited voices sell you new ringtones,and contrite ones request you to stay on hold. Bhuvaneshwari Sriram,veteran newsreader and the voice of Airtel in Tamil,says,“We have to sound apologetic when we’re saying that the lines are busy or that the system is down,but when we’re promoting a new offer,we have to speak in an enthusiastic tone of voice to attract the listener.” She breaks off to demonstrate,putting on a bright smile and a positively buoyant voice,“Inda pudiya offer moolam ippodai recharge seiyungal! (Recharge with this new offer now!)”  

A robotic affect-less voice,on the other hand,is required for Interactive Voice Responses (IVRs). If you’ve ever lost your credit card or been wrongly billed for something,that’s the voice you heard intone “to speak to a customer care executive,press nine” after listening to eight other options with mounting panic or fury. “For IVRs,to be understood clearly,we use a tone of voice that’s somewhere between warm and mechanical,” says Arora. “We’re sort of like the person sitting in the reception,a bit formal,but making you familiar with all the corners of the company.”  

Voice artists like Neelima and Bhuvaneshwari work as aural receptionists,whose bright,smiling voices helpfully guide you around those corners,or just ask you,sweetly,to wait in a chair. Just as an impatient customer is more likely to comply with a comely receptionist,most service providers prefer to use women’s voices to seduce their customers with new offers,or just keep them company while they’re on hold.  

“Customers are more patient when it’s a woman’s voice on the line,as they find it more soothing,” says audio producer Ashley Rodrigues. “On the other hand,men’s voices are used to sell products,because they’re thought to hold more authority. Unless it’s,say,a detergent ad.” Rodrigues’ Mumbai-based studio,Sounds Good,produced voice prompts for telecom companies including Airtel and BSNL about six years ago,until they lost out to more cost-effective Delhi competitors,who had the added advantage of being close to their client’s corporate offices that had since moved to Gurgaon.  

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“When we began,” recalls Rodrigues,“telecom companies like Airtel had no brand image in mind; they just wanted someone who sounded young,who had good diction. But in a couple of years,they had pictured a persona for this voice: someone young,elite,who’d been to school abroad. They realised that this persona,this voice,was the face of the company.”  

Aditya Singh,IVR-head of Balacomm Media,Delhi,knows these faces all too well. He’s had time to get to know them,since they’ve spent six days a week over the past five or six years at his Kalkaji and Chittaranjan Park studios. They do well to keep coming back: the going rate for a voice artist begins at Rs 100 per line and rising,depending on language and experience,and the studio clocks 600 to 700 prompts in an average day’s work.  

“We have top-of-the-line talents in 23 regional languages,including Gujarati,Marathi,Bengali,Haryanvi,Kashmiri and Nagamese,working for Aircel,Tata Docomo,MTS,Videocon Mobile,Virgin Mobile.…” lists Singh. “Apart from Uninor and Vodaphone,we cater to everyone.” There are a few basic qualities that all these clients expect of their vocal “face”,the voice they choose to represent them. “The diction should be crisp,the voice should be friendly,” says Singh.  

More specifically,the voice should be friendly to the company’s customer base. So,Airtel’s voice has to be “classy,upmarket,un-lethargic,and professional” in its Tier-1 city base,and for its rapidly expanding rural circle,offer services like a crop advisory providing tips on mandi prices,weather,fertiliser use and even the care of sick livestock. Virgin Mobile tries to befriend its young subscribers with a persona that’s “bubbly,excited,and a bit dramatic”.  

New market entrant MTS,aiming at a similar customer base,tries a “fresh,friendly,conversational” approach to appeal to “carefree,fun-loving,not-very-intellectual” urban youth,who have abundant amounts of leisure time to be able to not just tolerate,but be wildly entertained by Value-added Service (VAS) messages such as “prank hello-tunes”. The latest hits among these,voiced by a male radio jockey,are a fake-IVR which goes “Hindi mein ek dabaye,tooti phooti English mein 1 ½ dabaye…” and a prank ringtone featuring a crotchety old man,who claims he’s stopped your call from the mobile tower he’s hanging from,and then treats you to a bit of doggerel.  

Aircel’s persona,meanwhile,is “simple,friendly,not-too-polished,and a bit rustic” so as to be better understood in the 23 regional circles it covers. It is also an irrepressibly happy one,as its voice artist Rochie Rana will attest to: “It’s an infectious,high-on-life,tripping-on-some-phenomenal-mind-bending-drug kind of happy!” When she’s voicing prompts for Tata Docomo,though,she goes swiftly from sunny to sultry. “They want a base-y,seductress kind of voice; this it’s-night-and-we’re-feeling-so-horny kind of feel,” says Rana,adding,with a wide,impish grin,“I wear my specs for Docomo. That makes me feel really hot!” 

Seductive,friendly,funny,sophisticated. These varying personas who soothe you,cajole you,and keep you entertained are the ways in which telecom companies operating in a fiercely competitive environment seek to grab your attention — and sustain it. “Voice prompts and IVRs play a very vital role,” observes Singh. “Telecom companies may spend lakhs on hoardings and advertisements,but these voices give them the real-time option of interacting directly with their customers.” Adds Rana: “Telecom companies expect you to not be this sad little voice on TV,saying ‘Seva ke liye khed hai’,just delivering a piece of information… Our voices are their way of extending their relationship with their customers,even when they’re out of reach. So,expectations are high.”