Mitigated Speech and the Help Desk Consultant

This article was written by me for my company, and reprinted here with permission.

Mitigated speech is a method of conveying a concept while selectively choosing syntax that will soften the impact of the concept on the listener.  It can be in deference to authority or position, or to appear polite and not causing offense.  The reasons for mitigating one’s speech vary, but usually center around what one feels the proper interaction with the listener should be.

Power Distance

Geert Hofstede performed studies to demonstrate how culture affects the behavior of the people and their organizations and found that there are five specific ideologies.  In his book, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Hofstede identifies the following as “dimensions” within society.

I.                    More Equal Than Others (power distance)

II.                  I, We, They (individualism)

III.                He, She, and (S)he (masculinity versus femininity)

IV.                What Is Different Is Dangerous (uncertainty avoidance)

V.                  Yesterday, Now, or Later? (long-term versus short-term orientation)

Mitigated speech is found most often in the first dimension of Hofstede’s work, in the realm of high “power distance.”  Power distance is a measure of how accepting society is of the fact that power is distributed unequally.  Cultures with a low power distance are “less distanced” from those who have authority in their society.  Hofstede says “In small power distance countries there is limited dependence of subordinates on bosses, and a preference for consultation, that is, interdependence, between boss and subordinate.  The emotional distance between them is relatively small: subordinates will quite readily approach and contradict their bosses” (Hofstede 1991, 27).

Cultures that have a high power distance are “more distanced” from those who have authority; society acknowledges power based on the position held.  Subordinates are more dependent upon bosses and accept decisions made by superiors based solely on their position.  It is considered impolite or insulting to correct or question a superior’s decisions.  Culture dictates that superiors know better than their subordinates, resulting in a fear to disagree openly with one’s boss.

Communicating Across the High Power Distance Gap: Speech Mitigation

There have been documented studies of the effects of high power distance on individuals’ interactions with superiors, especially in the workplace.  Hofstede says, “Subordinates are expected to be told what to do…and contacts between superiors and subordinates are supposed to be initiated by the superiors only” (Hofstede 1991, 35). In the face of this, when subordinates found the need to express information to their bosses, they had to downplay, or sugarcoat, the meaning of their words to not conflict with their proper place in culture.  They had to find some way to interject their thoughts into conversation without seeming to overstep their bounds.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success, he popularized this idea by describing six separate degrees of speech mitigation that can occur (Gladwell 2008, 195).

Mitigated speech can be both negative and positive.  When immediate information is needed quickly and the point of offending someone is not a concern, less mitigation must be employed: there is less chance of confusion and information can flow freely.  When the goal is to deliver information so that the receiving party is not offended or made uncomfortable, mitigated speech is what results.  A help desk must teach its consultants how to mitigate their speech, both so they recognize when they should use it and when they should not.

Mitigation Can Be Bad

Consider the following example, mentioned in Outliers. Two linguists, Ute Fischer and Judith Orasanu, gave the following hypothetical scenario to a group of airline captains and first officers (Gladwell 2008, 194-195):

You notice on the weather radar an area of heavy precipitation 25 miles ahead.  [The pilot] is maintaining his present course at Mach .73, even though embedded thunderstorms have been reported in your area and you encounter moderate turbulence.  You want to ensure that your aircraft will not penetrate this area.

Question: What do you say to the pilot?

Fischer and Orasanu found that captains overwhelmingly said they would issue a command in that situation: “Turn thirty degrees right.”  They were talking to a subordinate.  They had no fear of being blunt.  The first officers, on the other hand, were talking to their boss, and so they overwhelmingly chose the most mitigated alternative.  They hinted.

In Outliers, Gladwell gives an incredible example of when mitigation can be disastrous. He cites reports about Korean Air, whose safety was horrendous because the staff onboard the aircraft were unable to communicate problems to the pilot’s attention.  They would Hint or make Preference statements that the captains would easily dismiss as not urgent or important.  In many cases, the captain would then underestimate the condition of their aircraft, or outside flying conditions.  Korean Air lost sixteen aircraft due to serious incidents and accidents accounting for over 700 lives in two decades.  Korean Air tackled this problem teaching their staff how and when to speak up and has not had any safety infractions or crashes since 1999 (Gladwell 2008, 182). 

What Does This Have To Do With the Help Desk?

The example above shows that mitigation is detrimental when it prevents vital information from being communicated to those who need it immediately.  The help desk is a different situation; it does not always necessarily depend on immediacy to complete its mission: putting their customers back to work, and making them more productive in the future.  Instead, a help desk’s effectiveness can be influenced by how tactfully it can deliver information: knowing how to appropriately mitigate speech can be a powerful tool to facilitate this.

Power Distance May Vary

The power distance between a consultant and a customer can be pretty high.  The customer is the reason a consultant is employed in the first place: the purpose of a help desk is to help the customer utilize the tools necessary to perform their own jobs.  The consultant is the subordinate, and the customer the superior.  We serve them what they want, when they want it.

Regardless of the supposed relationship stated above, every interaction between consultant and customer will be different.  A customer may not consider the help desk consultant as a subordinate: they are looking for help to complete and perform their own job.  In some cases, they will relinquish all “superior” status to simply be told what to do so they can continue their day’s work.  They may feel uncomfortable with technology, with a general idea of what they need, but relying on the consultant to guide them.  On the other hand, they may overestimate their own abilities, and could take offense from a consultant’s attempts to correct or guide them.

A customer may call and start giving details of the job they are trying to perform, and the consultant listens carefully to the customer’s intended goal.  At this moment, the power distance is high, with the consultant in a subordinate position: a consultant does not necessarily know what is required of the customer in their job function, and needs to ascertain what the customer really desires.

The conversation changes when the customer admits that they have reached some roadblock: the true purpose for the call.  It usually involves some “tool” they use to perform their jobs, such as Excel to create charts, or PowerPoint to create their sales presentations.  The consultant is in a place to make suggestions as the expert regarding the usage of said tool.  The power distance changes dramatically as the customer gives up that control of the conversation, placing the consultant on a considerably closer level of authority.  The consultant may even take on the role of superior, guiding the customer through what needs to be done.

Depending on where the conversation may proceed, discussion regarding the job to be accomplished is usually in the customer’s domain, and the tools used to do so are in the consultant’s.  This results in a unique environment for help desks: the power distance can change from minute to minute!

While the obvious help desk-to-company relationship is understood, customer service is defined as the customer’s perception of how they were treated compared to how they perceive they should have been treated.  The customers’ perceptions of the power distance between themselves and the help desk consultants are an unknown variable that can fluctuate throughout the interaction.  It is up to the consultant to listen for audible clues such as the words the customers say—as well as how they say it, the unspoken emotion—to determine the customer’s perception and adapt to it.

A Friendly Help Desk is an Effective Help Desk

Tact is all-important at any help desk.  Your customers need to feel comfortable calling because every problem that goes unreported can cause serious problems for their company.  This is not just an attempt to interject moral friendliness: negative experiences can have a number of repercussions that can cost thousands of dollars per employee.

When it comes to technical support, people are like water: they will follow the path of least resistance.  Each negative experience with a help desk puts them in a bad mindset: “it is difficult to get an answer from the help desk.”  They turn to their coworkers instead.  Now, you have two (or more) employees working to resolve a problem that neither of them are paid to do!  Their role in generating revenue for their company is diminished, their value decreased, and yet they receive the same salary and benefits.

A good help desk consultant must gauge each customer they speak to: how patient they seem, how urgent their job duty is.  They need to feel the customer’s perception of what they expect and not be biased by their own opinion of what should happen on a support call.  Learning proper speech mitigation can ensure that consultants not only identify through the customer’s speech what they perceive the power distance to be, they can also select appropriate responses that will deliver the necessary information without leaving the customer with a negative impression. 

Handling Customer Complaints

Mitigated speech can be incredibly useful when dealing with customers that have had negative experiences with your help desk, or any help desk, in the past.  It is vital that any problems with a customer be dealt with immediately and swiftly.  According to a U.S. OCA/White House National Consumer Survey, retail business customers who complained after making a minimum purchase of $100 and whose complaint was not resolved, only 19% would continue to purchase from that business.  That number jumped to 54% when the complaint was resolved, and then a spectacular 82% when the complaint was resolved quickly (Morgan 2003, 6).

Think about those numbers in a help desk environment.  The $100 threshold is set to get accurate numbers from people who are the most likely to ensure their complaint is heard, i.e., the issue is important enough to them that they feel the need to take action.  Otherwise the results would be skewed from the undoubtedly many complaints that go unreported because it is not worth the hassle of complaining.  The work environment is identical: there are times customers find themselves needing to take action, and other times they will feel it is not worth calling a support desk. 

Keeping that in mind, look at the percentages.  Note how the percentages climb with each step towards a more positive reaction, 19% to 54% to 82%.  Whenever a customer feels that they will suffer a negative experience, they will find some other way around.  Following the path of least resistance, they may decide it easier to figure it out on their own, learning software features instead of performing their job, or seek out coworkers to teach how to perform the task or fix the problem. Metaphorically, that is that many more people who are not building a house because they are spending time learning how a hammer works. 

And that is NOT including the word-of-mouth preventing their coworkers from calling in as well. 

The percentages clearly show—82% of complaining customers returning whose issues were resolved swiftly—that when a customer has the need to complain, and the complaint is resolved and resolved quickly, they are that much more likely to be comfortable using the service in the future.  This prevents the company’s other resources and time from being squandered.

Complaints must be handled, and they must be handled swiftly.  That requires speaking to complaining customers while they are still upset or angry.  By learning speech mitigation, a consultant can identify the perceived power distance between themselves and the customer, and will allow a consultant to find the right things to say to a customer without further fanning the flames, while still remaining effective at solving the problem.

Mitigation Can Be Good

Customers do not like having “problems.”  Simply stating that a consultant wants to help solve an upset customer’s “problem” can just serve to anger them further.  It requires special tact to communicate information to an upset customer without seeming to question their actions or contradict their reasoning.

Sound familiar?  This sounds like the description of an organization that has a high power distance from their customers.  The help desk must defer to their choices and preferences, and make them feel correct and in charge, even when they are hopelessly wrong.  Depending on the customer’s perception of their received customer service and level of upset, it is important that the consultant knows what levels of mitigated speech there are so they can better formulate an appropriate response.

When a customer perceives themselves as the one in charge, or seems irritable, a good rule of thumb is to mitigate speech as a subordinate to a superior and help guide the customer to their destination.  When the customer perceives the consultant as the one in charge, they may make Hint, Preference, or Query statements as they mitigate their own speech towards the consultant.  The consultant can identify this, realize they are perceived as the superior, and can begin leading using Commands and Team Obligation Statements.

Let us take a scenario where a customer, upset with an issue that this particular help desk cannot resolve, must be told to call somewhere else.  Consider the following:

They all say the same thing, but each is a slightly different flavor.  A calm customer may be able to take the Command from a consultant as a quick redirection, but an angry customer may consider it short shrift.  The Team Obligation Statement may sound friendly to someone who is not experiencing a serious problem, but can sound like a run-around to someone who is already frustrated.  A response to an upset customer should be mitigated appropriately, but not too much.  An upset customer wants results, and less mitigation allows information to flow faster.  Imagine if a consultant had used the above Hint response on this upset customer!

It is incredibly important, even when an issue “is not your problem,” that the consultant realizes that customers tend to lump “help desks” together.  If they felt they got a rude response from a help desk, they will feel less inclined to call any help desk in the future, including your own!  Consultants must assure, with a “CAN DO” attitude, that they are there to assist the customer.  There is no problem a consultant cannot help with; even the act of directing a customer to an appropriate desk is helpful.  That puts the customer that much closer to resolving their problem, and will associate your help desk with “helpful” in the future.

Let us review another scenario, where a customer is frustrated with himself because he feels overwhelmed by the software program he uses, which unfortunately happens more often than he likes to admit.  Consider the following:

It is up to the consultant to gauge just how frustrated our customer is.  Also, he or she must take into account the customer’s current expertise with the software, which can be gauged by asking open-ended questions about what the customer is looking to accomplish.  For example, for someone who knows Excel in and out, telling them to just choose the menu is sufficient, and they will appreciate the consultant not explaining things they already know.  However, in this example, we have someone who is not very familiar with the software.  Not only is the Command presumptive that they know what a PivotTable even is, it is not as simple as the Command sounds.  (“What is it exactly I want, when you say pick what I want?”)

Maybe he is upset because he just wants to get it done?  Perhaps he does not quite know what he wants?  In one, the Team Suggestion might be the best plan because it gives a direction the customer can grasp onto, whereas in the other the Team Suggestion would further frustrate him because he will feel you are telling him what he wants.

Maybe he is completely flustered due to a looming deadline, and is having a hard time thinking straight.  A simple Hint or a nudge in the right direction by offering choices in a Preference statement will let them make the decisions, and not feel so helpless and lost.

Now, we will look at a general scenario where a customer is upset at the help desk for an issue he or she believes is their fault: not responding timely, fixing the wrong problem, or fixing a problem outside an agreed upon timeframe.  They want you, the consultant who happened to answer the phone, to fix this.  Consider the following:

Again, it is up to the consultant to determine just how fired up the customer is.  In most cases, the particular Command here is a disastrous idea.  Telling a customer to calm down is drawing attention to the fact that the customer needs to calm down, and is an affront to the customer’s perceived right to be upset about an issue.  If the customer is more panicked than angry, using the Team Obligation Statement, firmly announcing the intent to resolve it, might work.  However, if the customer is extremely angry, the Team Suggestion might insult them.  They don’t want to work with you; they want YOU to fix it!

In a situation like this, mitigating as far down as a Query or Preference may be necessary.  The Query and Preference statements take the consultant out of the decision-making process and put the customer firmly in the driving seat.  A very good customer-handling technique is demonstrated here: although the customer believes he or she is in charge because they are making decisions, the consultant can guide their actions by choosing which options the customer can decide between in a Preference response. 

Tact = Mitigated Speech

Knowing what levels of mitigation exist allows the consultant to see under which level the statements they routinely make fall under.  A consultant may find they give entirely too many orders (Command responses), frustrating customers unnecessarily.  Or, they may find they are afraid to make any decisions for a customer, making Command, Team Obligation Statement, or Team Suggestions permanently outside their reach, even when it is needed.  They frustrate customers by waiting for the customer to tell them what to do.

They can also determine where the customer perceives themselves to be.  If they hear the customer Hinting at things they’d like to see, or making hesitant Preference statements, they may perceive the help desk consultant to be in charge, expecting them to take charge.

It is vital that every help desk consultant know how to identify mitigated speech as well as mitigate their own speech to better serve their customers.  It is necessary to keep the company’s workforce healthy, giving them the confidence that they can tap the help desk resources for concerned, efficient help.  The last things you want are customers who want to waste their company’s time and resources by not calling back.

Bibliography

Gladwell, Malcolm.  Outliers: The Story of Success.  2008. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Hofstede, Geert H.  Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind.  1991.  Berkshire, England: McGraw-Hill Book Company Europe.

Morgan, Rebecca L.  Calming Upset Customers: Staying Effective During Unpleasant Situations.  3rd ed.  Marlin Park, California: Crisp Publications, Inc.