Call Centre Confidence: Four Key Language Tips

In this guide, you’ll learn how confidence-first English training helps 5-star hotel call centres improve guest satisfaction, reduce call-handling times and perfect Forbes service metrics — even when grammar isn’t perfect.

Imagine two English-speaking guests call a 5-star hotel to rebook a cancelled suite. The first guest connects to a confident call centre agent, who despite having a lower English fluency level, imperfect grammar and a slight accent, resolves the issue in minutes with a warm, decisive tone. The second guest speaks to an agent with a higher level of English but is overly formal and cautiously reads precise phrases from a script. The latter runs the risk of leaving the guest frustrated or impatient, so in this article we’re going to look at some practical language training tips to improve caller satisfaction.

In Macao’s luxury hospitality sector, where over 80% of guests are international travellers, call centres are the first test of a hotel’s ability to deliver Forbes Travel Guide’s coveted 5-star service. While clear, accurate English is often prioritised, a 2024 Zendesk study revealed a striking insight: customers value confident communication 35% more than linguistic perfection in call centre interactions. This challenges Asia’s hospitality sector, where grammar drills and memorisation of vocabulary lists and scripts often dominate English language training. In reality, a confident lower-level English speaker often outperforms an apprehensive or robotic higher-level speaker by boosting Forbes metrics such as ‘Graciousness’ and ‘Guest Comfort & Convenience’. 

Why does confidence = trust?
Research in behavioural science, such as a 2023 University of Cambridge study, shows confident speech triggers trust by signalling competence, even when accompanied by minor errors. Zendesk’s findings demonstrate that guests equate confidence with reliability. For example:

• Forbes Travel Guide’s ‘Efficiency’ metric rewards prompt call resolution. Confident agents resolve calls faster by avoiding overly repetitive clarifications and reading scripted phrases. Willis, the Call Centre Manager for a luxury hotel, recently told us: ‘Confidence ensures patience, which is a key language skill [in our industry]. I would identify the skills [for a successful call] to be patience, appropriate tone of voice and mindset.’
   
• However, in Macao’s call centres, most of the English calls are from non-native speaking travellers from countries such as Korea, Japan, Thailand and India. So, agents who use clear, decisive, polite filler phrases that non-native speakers would understand like ‘Let me personally arrange that for you’ build rapport faster than those fixated on perfect syntax in their English.
   

The hidden cost of over-correction
A 2023 Greater Bay Area survey conducted by CBRE found that 60% of guest complaints cited overly formal communication as a barrier to satisfaction. Overly cautious agents sound robotic, clashing with Forbes’ ‘Thoughtfulness & Personalised Service’ criteria. As hospitality leader Horst Schulze notes, customers prioritise ‘feeling cared for’ over technical perfection — a lesson Greater Bay Area call centres can apply by promoting confident, natural communication over rigid English standards.

Tips for your team
Here are our top 4 training tips accumulated from 15 years of call centre training:

1. Reframe your English language training goals: Prioritise tone, clarity and responsiveness over error-free speech. Use weekly confidence logs to track progress. 
   [Download our free template].
    
2. Teach useful ‘holding phrases’: Equip agents with short, adaptable phrases that help them maintain composure and professionalism, even under pressure. These expressions can prevent awkward silences and give agents valuable time to think or complete tasks. For example, phrases like “Let me quickly check that for you — it’ll just take a moment,” or “I completely understand. Let me just verify the details so I can assist you properly,” help agents sound confident while they manage the guest’s request. Similarly, “That’s a great question—let me find the best answer for you,” and “Just a moment — I want to make sure I’m directing you to the right solution,” demonstrate attentiveness while allowing brief pauses to process information. Build a growing list of these phrases and share success stories of how they’ve worked in real calls during weekly meetings. This keeps the team engaged and encourages consistent use.
    
3. Localise your content: Use region-specific scenarios to set training tasks (e.g., explaining Macao’s ferry schedules or how to get to Macao from Hong Kong airport). Showing an understanding of the local environment to guests that are unfamiliar with Macao quickly builds their trust in your agents’ abilities and knowledge.
    
4. Align with Forbes benchmarks: Align your evaluations with Forbes Travel Guide’s 4 Key Assessments: reservation calls, pre-booking enquiries, post-booking follow-ups and proactive emails. Treat every call as a Forbes call and drill these assessment areas regularly. 
    

The ROI? According to a research study by Cornell University in 2023, hotels that are adopting confidence-centric training benefit in two ways:

• They achieve up to 25% higher guest retention 
• They are able to train new agents 50% faster 

By strategically embracing imperfection, your individual team members can collectively become Forbes-calibre ambassadors.

Ready to Transform Your Call Centre into a Forbes 5-Star Team? Book a Free Consultation Now!