Whether you’re a verbose social butterfly or a quiet social observer, we can all afford to improve our communication skills. Having the ability to convey a message or meaning directly in a way that will be immediately understood is an underrated talent. 

Fortunately, there are great tools and apps at your disposal to help improve the way you interact with and present yourself to others. 

For improving your communication skills without needing to spend hundreds of dollars on a speaking coach, let’s look at the best apps for developing communication skills.

• Ummo
• Speech Tools
• VirtualSpeech
• Samsung #BeFearless App
• PromptSmart Pro
• LikeSo
• Rhetoric

Becoming a great speaker means focusing on all the different areas that compose conversation. It is also important to think about what verbal habits you might have developed over the years that impede effective communication. 

Related Articles You Might Want to Check:

The 7 Basic Elements of Public Speaking

Communication Skills Guide: With 11 Good Examples and 8 Poor Ones

To understand more about what makes an impressive communicator we’ll take an in-depth look at each app and what they can offer you to develop better skills.

What App Is Best For The Communication Skills You Want To Improve?

1. Improve Word Power, Clarity, And Pace With Ummo

Ummo was created when a team of students from Harvard’s Business School realized a recurring factor among top-level executives and CEOs is eloquence. 

Is it a coincidence that some of the most successful people give impressive speeches and seem to have an innate ability to speak with clarity and confidence? Not at all, however, most high-level executives, successful entrepreneurs, and leaders know the value of communication skills. Which is why they often invest hundreds of dollars and hours learning those skills from celebrated speech coaches. 

Ummo works by tracking every word said once you press record on the app. The app will then either notify you when you use a filler word in real-time or keep track of all the filler words you use and give you the ability to change them. 

Ummo also displays in text every word spoken during the recording so you can see if there are certain words or phrases you rely on too heavily. 

The app can also show you how you pace your sentences which is a great tool for practicing public speaking or preparing a presentation. Most of us tend to speed up and try to rush through a speech or presentation if we are not comfortable. Some don’t even notice they are doing so which makes this a great tool to have.

You can learn more about Ummo and download the app on Appstore through their main page by clicking HERE.

2. Voice Quality And Acoustic Control With SpeechTools

SpeechTools is another great app for developing better communication skills. Unlike Ummo that focuses on eliminating filler words and creating more confident, direct sentence structures, SpeechTools focuses on voice quality. 

Rushing through a speech conveys to the listener a lack of confidence, but so do volume and pitch changes. SpeechTools displays both your pitch and volume as you speak and also lets you organize and share your recordings. This could prove useful if you’re working with a speech coach or using another app to analyze your speech.

When you listen to a great song you will probably notice that it doesn’t have the same volume, pitch, or fervor the entire way through. Like a great musician, a great speaker uses pitch and volume to engage listeners and punctuate points. Conversely, a bad speaker can not control these aspects and will lose listeners. 

An entire speech in monotone will often have listeners bored and tuned out and a speaker who gets too quiet or high pitched can also lose an audience.

As we discussed above, how you say something is as important if not more important than what you’re actually saying. The most brilliant person can have something important to say, but if they are too fast, too quiet, mumbling, or peppering their speech with “ums” no one will listen to them or take them seriously.

Speechtools is globally recognized as one of the best tools for voice therapy as well. You can learn more and get the app on their main website, HERE.

3. Environment Preparation With VirtualSpeech or Samsung #BeFearless

VirtualSpeech tackles the problem of the environment when considering public speaking. As important as it is to focus on pacing, volume, and word power, if you aren’t preparing for the distractions of live speaking, all that preparation can go out the window. 

VirtualSpeech is a virtual reality compatible app that lets you practice in realistic scenarios. The Samsung #BeFearless app is similar to this as well. 

Practicing a speech or presentation in front of the mirror is usually the go-to recommendation for speech therapists and E-How guides but that doesn’t give you any actual feedback on your delivery besides your own assessment. 

It also stands to reason your home won’t have the same level of sounds, visual distractions, and discomfort as wherever you’re actually delivering your speech. 

VirtualSpeech also gives you the ability to upload your slides and notes when practicing to give a presentation, as well as an eye contact rating. 

Like some of the other apps we’ve mentioned, there is also a speech analysis function with real-time feedback. Samsung, however, offers heart rate monitoring in addition to eye contact and addresses more the fears associated with public speaking rather than just optimizing performance.

Having fun with virtual augmented realities is a bonus in itself, so go check VirtualSpeech Website, and learn more – HERE.

Samsung #BeFearless is a two-layered project, to address the two most common fears, heights, and public speaking. Learn more on the official website, HERE.

4. Staying On Track With Prompt Smart

So, you’ve worked on eliminating filler words, mastered your pacing, and are comfortable with distractions and background noise while speaking, great! Now it’s important to train your brain not to get overconfident. 

The pitfall confident speakers often encounter is going off-script. This isn’t necessarily always a bad thing, in fact reading a room and deviating in kind can add depth to a presentation. However, when you’re speaking within a set time window or reading from a teleprompter, these unscheduled deviations can throw your entire speech off track and leave you scrambling to recover. 

PromptSmart addresses this with patented technology that follows every word of your speech or presentation as you say it. It scrolls automatically to keep pace with your delivery and if you ad-lib or go off-script the software will respond by stopping and waiting, so you don’t get left behind while your speech rolls on without you.  

You can learn more about the different apps available on their official website, HERE.

5. Articulate And Analyze With LikeSo

LikeSo is another personal speech improvement app that acts as a personal pocket coach. The app also gives you a grade based on your analyzed verbal skills which is a nice way to show progress as your skills improve. 

The thing about this app that makes it a little different from its competitors is the ability to manually program words you’d like to train against.

Common filler words are important to try and correct, but as every individual tends to develop their own speech patterns you could have a different filler word than is considered common. 

We talked a bit above about word power but to expand on it here, excessive filler words weaken the meaning of a speech, distract the listener, and convey a lack of confidence in what you’re saying.

That isn’t to say in casual speech or even in a business presentation you’ve failed if you use a couple of filler words, but in excess, it is a huge problem. 

We usually use filler words when we need a moment to think and don’t want to leave dead air, but training ourselves to take a deep breath instead of saturating our sentences with useless words is a great communication habit.

I like the friendly interface of the LikeSo app and its all-round type approach to helping you make a better speech. Please check more details and download the app on the official Website, HERE.

6. Make It A Game With Rhetoric

Public speaking requires training and practice for a reason, it’s often not easy. Some people get so petrified by the thought of having to deliver an eloquent, curated speech to a crowd that they experience fight or flight symptoms. 

Rhetoric – The Public Speaking Game, was designed with this in mind. With fun colors and an easy-to-follow formula, this board game turned phone app is a great tool to help hone your communication skills.

Rhetoric can be played with up to eight people and teaches you to speak with little to no preparation, control your nerves, and speak with conviction. You’ll also learn how to structure an impromptu speech and lessen the anxiety often associated with public speaking.

Check the official website, HERE, download the app, and start having fun with family and friends, while learning and getting better and better as a speaker. 

7. Which of These Apps Is The Absolute Best Overall?

All the apps we have discussed here today are considered to be the best out of their competitors on the market. Still, there is no single catch-all app that will improve every single aspect of speech and communication. It is best to identify what aspects of your delivery you want to focus on improving and then the best app for you should be clear from the descriptions above!

Using one or two apps from this list together will ultimately give you the best results if you are looking to improve on every aspect of communication and public speaking.