My Customers Complain A Lot, Advice Needed

You are taking initiative and you are obviously trying hard to solve this issue. Unfortunately, in my opinion, I can see how native English speakers would get a little frustrated at the video. There are times where I have to focus extra hard to make out what you say in the video and this is what might be frustrating to your customers. They probably won't want to be making the effort to understand what you are saying in order to listen to the material.

I can understand you just fine. It is just the extra effort needed to understand you that might be cause for complaints from paying customers.

I would still recommend you keep with video tutorials. Maybe you can outsource this part to someone else who is more fluent in English but also in your local area or outsource to someone else in another country like the Philippines.

You can use a text-to-speech program. The creator of the well-known plugin called "Instabuilder" is from Singapore I believe and she is hard to understand also, so she used a text-to-speech program called Ivona to create her tutorial videos.

There is also others like Text Aloud you could use. I'm not sure what the costs would be but if you are on a tight budget, then you should just partner up with someone to do the videos for you for a commission or flat rate.

Joan, that is a great idea. Iwonder if it sounds too robotic or not human enough... For a voice to be used throughout a long course with 15 modules, it might get annoying to hear a robotic voice throughout. Surely there is text to speech software with advanced speech features; including human like speech.

It is different, but I do not have any problems understanding your accent.
However, I suppose many people might find it hard to follow you, especially if they are not native speakers.
Have you consider trying subtitles? It may work just fine.

It is pretty strong but I have no trouble understanding you.
I have purchased products from Hitesh before and you sound pretty similar to him, he is also very funny and successful so your accent shouldn't stop you creating videos.

Cheers
Alan

English is not my first language either and my accent is worse than yours! However, I have no difficulty to understand what you say but it is true that it is a little disturbing. Probably because it is not my first language, it takes me an effort to further attention.

You may try to speak a little more slowly and take little pauses. I also thought to suggest you to find someone in Phillipines, the work can be done well and at great prices.

Regarding the "robotic voice", I do not really recommend it, it's even worse than your accent!

Your users are ALREADY complaining. That's a sign that, no matter the feedback you get from this forum, you must change something.

You're in a tough spot actually, because you have to choose for the lesser of 2 evils: either a strong accent (and yes, yours is pretty strong) or a robotic characterless text-to-voice software speech.

The problem is that both options will become tiresome for the viewer if you record long videos. I would go for IVONA text-to-speech software, and keep your videos as short as possible (more videos, shorter length) to avoid wearing out your viewers.

Why not use a friend or relative who speaks well. At least that would be cheaper option.

Do you have any friends who have less of an accent than yourself? Maybe they can voice a few videos for you instead?

It doesn't matter what anyone here thinks of your accent. What matters is that you said that your customers complain a lot. That's not good. Do up a typewritten script of each video so they can follow along.

I can relate to your issue. I have a high pitched voice that is annoying and tried to change the voice on my videos using Audacity. That just made it sound stranger. So I used Ivona, Salli voice for my last videos. It sounded the most natural to me however I had to add commas and other things into the text to make her sound human. Also, you can change the speaking speed so it isn't too fast. Here's the clincher though, the videos I made with the text to speech software voice are my WORST converting ones. I have decided that I am just going to have to pay someone to do the voice for my future ones. Personally I was going to try looking on odesk and sites like that to find someone that could just read the transcript and record it for me cheap. You may want to try that. Another possibility might be to add captioning text to the bottom of the video (probably the incorrect term but I'm referring to what you see on T.V's where the audio transcript rolls across the bottom of the screen).

Suzanne has a great point, what we think means nothing. Its what your customers think, and your customers say your accent is to thick. So your accent is to thick. I watched some of your text to speech video and I thought that was much better. Just slow it down a bit if your targeting US people. Here in the US we speak a little slower than other English speaking people. Other than that I think the text-speech is a great option.

I understand you no problem, some people are picky though.

Text to Speech is excellent
but
You could also try using subtitles .. ? which is free and easy enough to do yourself.

Do you know how many people complain versus how many don't? It could be a small percent that you could ignore for now.

For now, you could partner with someone or provide transcripts. Then once you start making more you can look at paying "professionals".

Garrie

Garrie has a valid point, how many are those complaining? I wouldn't suggest that you ignore them, because they have shown the trust and bought from you. So if you want to keep that trust, you must deliver what you promised.

Now if they aren't that many that complain, why don't you ask you customers what they want? Tell them that you care, and you always want to deliver the best or something etc...Often we ignore taking advice from our customers, maybe because we are afraid to show weakness, but you will be surprised how many times they will guide you. I don't know how good the relationship is with your customers/prospect, but showing them you are human will build a better relationship. So don't be afraid to ask them.

There are two alternatives from my point of view:

A) Don't be one of the crowd
Do your numbers. And this is the example I am going to give you. if you are not Cameron Diaz, there is a good chance 80% of the people won't like you.
There will be around 17% who will tolerate you and 3% who will love you just because of your accent.
My point? Make this weakness INTO your advantage. This can be something you can build on / make it your trade mark. If your numbers are right, only 3% of those costumers will make you rich (and make others change your mind - maybe it is not a good example - but Gangnam style is not exactly masterpiece - correct me if I am wrong!?

B) Outsource
Find someone to do the voice over - negotiate (if you find someone, who is really good - offer compensation based on the profits - instead of the upfront payments). And remember - the best outsourcers are not neccesarly the most expensive ones

P.S.
If you aks me, I would go with the option "A" (maybe because I am an underdog myself - coming from a very small european country) - but I like to challenge and beat "the big dogs"

Well I disagree with people saying its not an issue.

I've been doing sound engineering for 14 years and through that time I've read a lot of peer reviewed research (as long as publishing my own studies in college) about the mediated influences of sound on emotion.

So I can tell you a lot of technical crap about sound and how it effects peoples emotions.

As far as accents go, it is well known that people prefer not just national accents, but regional and local accents. I have also ran studies on this in my own business.

For example, I'm from New Jersey. So I have a "NJ accent". But I'm still a native English speaker, so my voice isn't that hard to understand. With that said, I ran a test where I had people from the South (on fiver) do the same exact voice over I was doing. In one of these studies I compared my northern, NJ accent to a southern, South Carolina (person was from Myrtle Beach) accent. Even though the person did studio quality voice overs (and had a better studio than I do), the conversions on my voiceover, for the same exact script and video, were better.

However, I target locally, and not nationally.

But I had to take his voice down from my site because conversions were better using my own, even with a lower quality voiceover. Also, pay close attention to commercial marketing. If you live in Brooklyn, all of the local ads you hear on the radio or tv, will usually be with a Brooklyn accent.

I also know in my own state, many of the radio stations, the ads, and local ads on tv are all done with local NJ accents.

When it comes to advertising nationally, its better to go for a "neutral" accent. Unless you are trying to brand your company around an accent like Geico does... which is fairly rare.

I have also read studies about this and do not have access to the database anymore but I may have the studies lying around in my office. If I find them I will reference them. Although I'm sure if you do some research you can find some on your own.

Psychinfo is a great database to research but its paid membership. Infotech is another I use to use.

If you ask me, the overall effect WILL be reduced conversions and more customer complaints. There is no doubt about it. I fired one of my SEO companies because they had the same accent you did (everyone in the company had your accent - this was resultfirst.com). Even though they performed a great service, we would waste countless hours trying to communicate over the phone... and it caused serious problems for our business. Aside from research, its also common sense. Would you rather sit around and listen to someone who speaks with your accent? Or would you rather learn from someone with a thick Scottish accent? Its the same with movies. I can watch British, Irish or Indian movies, but obviously I do NOT prefer watching those types of movies. A movie has to be REALLY GOOD for me to step away from my native language or accent and go watch it.

I can list out example after example. Look at Russel Brand. He was trying hard to make it big in the US. And he even did 1 big comedy show in NY I believe. But after that he never received any more offers because his accent wasn't marketable in the United States. He even talks about this in one of his videos. How hes considered famous where he comes from but when he comes to the US noones knows him or gives him the same level of respect.

The problem is, so many people are attracted to accents... just because they are novel and different. So many people will say "I love xxx type of accent". But when it comes to building trust, comfort, familiarity, rapport, people tend to prefer accents similar to their own. I can also speak on teaching. My mother was a teacher / professor for 38 years. And she talked about how in private universities, if you had a strong accent you would be discriminated against. Because those universities knew it would lead to bad grades.

There are like I said, mitigated effects and variables. Like if a person has a strong, charismatic personality, and is an excellent speaker, people will like listening to them. Arnold Schwarzenegger is an example of this. But circumstances like that are very rare.

Anyway, if I were you, I'd see myself has having 2 choices:

1) Outsource your voiceovers on fiver. For $5, you can get a 3 minute script done.

2) Practice and take advantage of all the mitigated variables. If your voice is annoying customers, there are many things you can do to mitigate that risk. You can use humor, you can use personality, you can use enthusiasm, passion, you can speak a bit louder, you can joke about your accent during videos. You can use funny disclaimers before videos start. If you get creative, there are lots of things you can do to mitigate the risk of losing customers.

The problem is, this stuff isn't so easy to do. And it takes a lot of time to be creative and entertaining if it doesn't come naturally.

Remember, you're assuming the role of basically a teacher. So your students need to understand you. And in the end, some people will be able to tolerate it, others won't, thats life. But I think you can learn a lot by comparing your accent to American accents. There are notable things you can write down and practice. Like I know one common problem is Indian accents use short, flat vowels, when Americans tend to draw out vowels. They also put a certain "stress" on the beginnings of all their words. In a way where it makes them sound like they're talking like a "chipmunk". No offense. But it sounds rapid and high pitched. I also know the the indian "accent" often just mispronounces certain words. Like "kit" becomes "keet" or sometimes instead of saying "help", they say "helep", instead of saying "own" they say "on" etc etc.

Try to IMITATE accents before creating your own. My brothers GF travels for a living, and I have no idea how she does it, but she has mastered over a dozen accents and shes only gone for 3 weeks at a time when she travels. All her accents are spot on. So I think if you spent 1 hour everyday just imitating American accents, you could dramatically improve your speaking. I know if I listen to an Indian accent for just a few minutes, its fairly easy to imitate. So it shouldn't be too hard to imitate an American accent. And if worse comes to worse, just go see a speech therapist.

-Red

ps. I have to say, I am NOT trying to insult people who speak with an indian accent. And I personally love all types of accents (except British lol). Accents add a certain richness to life and the world would be very boring if everyone spoke the same way. But when it comes to learning and education, its always better to speak the dominant language & accent of your students.

Folks in the Philippines speak American English. I often can't tell they are not here in America.

Usually the accent a person has causes them to place emphasis on syllables other than on the one where the accent is normally spoken, or they mispronounce only one syllable in a word, but that is enough to make it difficult for listeners. For example in the word "this" the letter "h" is pronounced so that the sound of "th" is made by placing your tongue just under your front teeth, and forcing air out from between your tongue and teeth. The letter"t" almost disappears.

Another example is the word "layout." The accent is on the first syllable, and the letter "a" is long - "laay out."

Here's an idea, put your written copy through speech generation software, and use that to help yourself learn the sounds for correct pronunciation.

If you will take the time to write out the script of the video you placed here in your original post and send it in a PM to me, I'll audio record it in American English, and put it in a zipped folder at one of my sites for you, so you can download the audio file and use that to learn pronunciation.

:-Don

This is a real problem for many. and unless you can start talking like an American, Brit, Aussie or similar, you are gonna have a problem.

Why don't you try dubbing your videos so if anyone has a problem understanding you, they can refer to the text at the bottom to verify. Talk slowly, and do your best to pronounce the words.

For my YouTube videos a few people would comment that they didn't
like my accent and others would say the very opposite. But the negative
comments are quite few. If they were a majority, then I would use a
voiceover. There is no 'pride of accent' here if your aim is to make
money. Give the people what the people want should be your
rule of thumb.

-Ray Edwards

It's hard to build a relationship with your list if you can't use your own voice in videos. How many complaints have you actually received? Is it statistically significant?

Try these two options for the voice:

The Narrator Files

http://blog.vantagepath.com/blog/bid...stom-Elearning

Try these two options for the voice:

The Narrator Files

http://blog.vantagepath.com/blog/bid...stom-Elearning

Maybe this will help just an idea. I suck and grammer and spelling (not your problem I know but bare with me). When I sold my first info product the customer complained and wanted a refund (my first sale) so I did. Then when to the sales letter said something like if you are buying this for the perfect spelling and grammer it's probably not for you if you want to learn how to get the records etc.... (into the pitch).. then this is for you, plus on first page of the ebook and the 3 ring binder version I added a page they can point out problem and I fix it.

In any case maybe you can say something about your accent that if that bothers them it's not for them, if they want to learn ..... then it's for them, something like that.

Not sure if this helps but just an idea. Good luck.

You definitely want to stick to what customers want. If you keep them satisfied then you will keep your customers. it's as simple as that. Have you thought of teaching the material through infographics? that would get rid of the accent problem and the issue of people not wanting to read anything. Might be more expensive than you want but is another idea

Hi,

I also have a foreign accent, but most people seem to understand what I'm saying. You could begin by outsourcing to Fiverr, but if you really wanted to build trust in your people, you will shoot the video as you. Maybe if you incorporate some of the tips from JMichaelZ (such as taking the trouble to script your video before shooting), it might help.

And if it's only just a handful of people who are complaining, and majority are okay with your accent, then just go on and keep doing your videos. You'll get better with time.

Well I have mixed feelings on this...

Even though I am a native english speaker - I also have a very strong "southern" accent...

I've had a few folks tell me it's hard to understand me at first - but they soon get used to it...

I also run a membership site and the main "value" is from weekly coaching sessions done via webinars. However, I "trained" my customers to know my voice and my "style" a long time before I ever though about starting a membership site. So I guess my customers were already used to my accent.

However, I really don't like the idea of you using a "robotic" voice as an accent is a huge branding tool. Many of my customers can now pick my voice out and instantly know it's me. So I've used my "accent" as a strength (rather than a weakness) and used it to brand myself.

So, what I would do is start offering your customers a written transcript of the videos and keep doing them in your own "natural accent" so that they can get used to it.

I personally enjoy listening to the "Indian accent" and I really think you should use it as a branding tool and not as a hindrance.

Of course, you can also find a VA that will do voice overs for cheap. I suggest looking for someone in the Philippines. I've had good luck at Odesk for these type of jobs.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Cheers,
Coby

Consider using a program called "Natural Reader". It's real good. You will want to purchase the voice called "Paul".