The IVR Clinic with Allison Smith

The 15 Commandments of IVR

Commandment #10: “Name Your Company Something That Needs No Special Instruction”
Thanks for your patience while I took a break from the “15 Commandments of IVR” Series to report from AstriCon – I’m back with the latest and one of the most pivotal installments of the series: Commandment #10: “Name Your Company Something That Needs No Special Instruction” – however, I acknowledge that it’s probably too late to implement this.

By the time they hire me to voice their IVR’s, the opportunity has likely already passed to talk to people about why they’ve named their companies what they have — many late nights have already been spent and reams of legal yellow paper consumed brainstorming about how to make their company’s name as unique and significant as possible; coming up with imaginative and innovative ways of spelling ordinary words to make them their own, riffing on existing words and modifying them to make them unique, or building a name from several different components which represent their company; a name which will identify their organization and which will no doubt look great on letterhead, website, booth banners, and business cards.

I am astounded at how many companies have me re-do their opening messages — after having voiced them to the best of my ability — due to mis-pronouncing their company’s name. I’ve even had clients — at the outset of a job — send an intonation file of *them* voicing the company’s name — or they schedule a pre-recording call with me — because (in their words): “The company name is kind of tricky — in fact, almost everybody gets it wrong! But it’s really important that you voice the opening message with the definitive pronunciation..”

I’ll say! I would think it would be crucially important that *everyone* say it in the “definitive way”, from the receptionist to the UPS delivery man to the people manning your booth at a trade show to someone seeing it for the first time. While it’s important that your company name be unforgettable, distinct, not apt to be confused with your competitor’s, and easy to recall, it should also probably not need a special tutorial on how to pronounce it properly.

I’ll add even further to that list, and suggest that not only is it important that your company’s name visually *look* impressive — I submit that it is crucial that the name actually “scans” to ear effectively. You will be *saying* your company’s name probably more than people will see it in its written form. You need to take into consideration how easy the name will be to “hear” — and to “say” — and imagine someone hearing your company name for the first time and immediately turning to type it into a web browser — wouldn’t you want to ensure that they hit *your* website every time; that your site is as easy as possible to find, and that the complex and unique spelling of your company’s name isn’t snagging their search?

Suppose — after much late-night work shopping, you’ve decided to call your exciting, innovative company “Ignyshyn”. Cool, right? A play on the word “Ignition”! It sounds just the same as the mainstream word, but it’s spelled so……imaginatively!

I’m officially begging you to re-think any and all clever liberties taken with the spelling of words to snazz up your company’s moniker. It needlessly complicates the name, and makes it almost impossible for customers to find you — especially if you don’t take measures to have your voice talent painstakingly spell out the website (“Go to Ignysyn.com. That’s I-G-N-Y-S-H-Y-N, dot com”) — which a surprising number of clients don’t have me do.) Do they just presume people are going to magically type in “Newtrality.com” or “Akwizytion.com”? Chances are, (especially if the difference in spelling isn’t pointed out in the copy), they’ll follow what their ear is telling them and go to “Neutrality.com” and “Acquisition.com”, experience brief confusion, and move on to your competition.

Especially vexing are company names with numerals written in — some seem straightforward (“Innov8?) but even those also frequently come with instructions to point out the play on words (“but try not to really say ‘eight’ at the end..”) and others are just plain befuddling (“4ti2de” — “fortitude”. Gah!)
I recently read the opening greeting for a company who decided to make their name an amalgam of the founder’s first names — similar to “Johareth, Inc.” Given no guidance as to the pronunciation, I went for the pronunciation: “Joe-HARR-eth.” Turns out, the names the title is based on were actually Johann, Harry, and Ethan — it would be more like “Yo-HAIR-eeeth.” But how was I to know? And how will the customers of Johareth possibly know? Especially without the “tutorial” on how to pronounce it.

I submit some very strong cases in point: some of the most recognizable and profitable companies operating today do so under names which have practically no chance of mis-interpretation, mis-pronunciation, and have zero confusion associated with the names: Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Google. Nobody’s inclined to say “Ibbim” instead of saying the individual letters of “IBM”; I would wager that there has never been an operator at Microsoft who had to correct a customer calling in: “Well, actually, it’s pronounced “MY-crow-soft”, not “MEEK-ro-soft…”, and even at first glance at the nonsensical, entirely manufactured word “Google”, you instantly knew how to say it, and I’ll bet you never slipped and called it “Goggle” (or typed in “Gewgal” as a search term.)

Simplicity, accessibility, and a turnkey approach to naming your company is key — the name should speak for itself. It should stand alone. It should not be an unpronounceable in-joke, and it only benefits you and your company if you create as simple a path as possible for customers to find you.
Join me here in about two week’s time, where I will continue with #11 in our series: “Don’t Go Overboard With Niceties” – a common occurrence in on-hold systems and IVR prompts alike – you can have too much of a good thing!

Thanks for reading!

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