14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14)

San Francisco, CA, USA
August 1-7, 1999


Impact of Male and Female Voice Cues on Consumers' Attitudes in Telemarketing

Claire Gélinas-Chebat (1), Jean-Charles Chebat (2), Robert Boivin (1)

(1) Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
(2) École des Hautes Études Commerciales, Canada

Voice is well known to have a crucial impact on consumer attitudes. In telemarketing, voice qualities are fundamental in the decision making of the consumer. Contradictory studies are sure indicators of the need for more research.
   In a factorial design putting forward three voice variables (intensity, intonation and speech rate), a male and a female professional actors, modifying their own voices read an advertising message. Manipulation checks corroborate each of the experimental conditions. Subjects (399) filled a questionnaire after hearing the message recreating telemarketing conditions. The questionnaire included a series of questions in a 7 points Liskert scales form revealing subjects attitudes toward the message and their behavioral intent about message content.
   Results show differences according to specifics voice variablesÊ: intensity, then speech rate, induce more effects on message perception and on behavioral intent than intonation. There is no significative impact in regards of the gender's source and respondents gender.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Gélinas-Chebat, Claire / Chebat, Jean-Charles / Boivin, Robert (1999): "Impact of male and female voice cues on consumers' attitudes in telemarketing", In ICPhS-14, 1577-1580.