The Professional Series: Stuttering With Clients
Welcome to the third and final segment of The Professional Series! The topic today is stuttering with clients. If you have a job that requires interacting a lot with clients, hats off to you! I have worked in customer service roles since I was a freshman in college, and boy is it TOUGH! It’s the ultimate environment to feel all kinds of unwanted feelings. Judgment, embarrassment, shame, frustration, anxiety…you name it. My years of experience have taught me some valuable lessons that will hopefully resonate with some of you. Let’s dive in!
Advertising
I used to be so afraid of stuttering to customers because I thought they would judge me as incompetent. Through some speech therapy sessions about self-discovery, I began to question why I assumed my audience judged me as incompetent. Turns out, it was because I judged myself as incompetent when I stuttered. Therefore, because of my own judgment, I made myself believe that others were judging me, when in reality they probably weren’t. Talk about some serious self reflection! Once I realized this concept, I began advertising my stutter with the purpose of letting myself speak without self judgment. It’s a bit paradoxical, but advertising to customers helps me to not judge myself. And when I judge myself less, I really don’t care what other people are thinking about me. Because as long as I’m happy, who really cares right?
I’ve got some great stories from advertising to customers – feel free to comment below if you want to hear more! I will say that one time, when I was working in a restaurant as a freshman in college, I advertised my stutter in response to the rude comment, “are you sure you know what you’re talking about?” and it paid off! The customer apologized profusely and left me a really nice tip. It certainly made my day!
Related – My Speech Therapy: ARTS
Open Stuttering
This goes hand in hand with advertising so I won’t ramble on too much, but I will say that open stuttering around customers is far more scary than advertising (at least for me! It’s different for every PWS). When I advertise to make myself more comfortable, following through with the whole “don’t judge yourself” motto is really difficult. Sometimes I still want to curl up in a ball and hide, but I try and push out at least a few open stutters. I always feel happier if I’m able to show a really ugly moment of open stuttering because that means that I’m one step closer to desensitizing to the self-judgment. If a customer tries helping me out by filling in my words, I make an effort to continue stuttering on that word until I get it out. It’s my way of saying “I appreciate you trying to help, but I can get my words out on my own.”
Speaking Up
Speaking up is so critical when you’re in a customer facing role. I learned this the hard way. Sometimes I would shorten my answers and explanations while speaking to customers because I was tired of the struggle. And in the end, that didn’t lead to very happy customers (or a happy boss!). Speaking up and getting your message across clearly isn’t about the way you sound but rather the content of your message. It’s far better to stutter as you give a thorough explanation that will help your clients then to hide your stutter by speaking only a few words. Remember, your customers are there to listen to you. You are the expert!
Lastly, if you have’t read my earlier posts on the Professional Series, then you should know that the NSA has a fantastic program designed to help those who stutter with networking, interviewing, and so on. I’ve spent a lot of time working on this series because I want to provide valuable advice to those who also struggle with stuttering in professional environments, so if there’s anyone in your network that you think would benefit from reading this series, please pass it along! Thanks for reading!
