How to Stop Saying "Um" and "Uh" on Video Calls

Filler words are invisible to you and deafening to everyone else. Research consistently shows that speakers who use frequent fillers are rated as less competent, less confident, and less trustworthy — even when what they're saying is correct.

On video calls it's even worse. There's no room noise, no movement, no coffee cup to fidget with. Every "um" sits in stark silence between your words.

Here are three techniques that actually work.

1. Replace fillers with silence

The hardest thing about stopping "um" is that it doesn't feel like a word — it feels like a pause holder. Your brain is afraid that if it stops making noise, you'll lose your turn to speak or appear to have forgotten what you're saying.

But a one-second silence sounds infinitely better than "um." It reads as confident, deliberate, thoughtful. The problem is that silence feels much longer to the speaker than it does to the listener. A pause that feels like five seconds to you is two seconds to everyone else.

Practice this: record yourself talking for 60 seconds on any topic. Watch it back and listen for every filler. Then re-record it, replacing every "um" with a closed-mouth pause. Notice how much better it sounds.

2. Slow down before you speed up

Most fillers happen at transitions — when you finish one thought and are moving to the next. The faster you try to talk, the more fillers you generate to buy processing time.

Counter-intuitively, slowing down removes them. When you speak at around 130–150 words per minute instead of 180+, your brain has time to compose the next sentence before your mouth gets there. Nothing to fill.

3. Script the transitions, not just the content

Most people prepare what they want to say but not how they'll get from one point to the next. Transitions are where fillers live. Writing them out explicitly ("The reason that matters is…", "Let me give you a concrete example…", "So the next question is…") removes the thinking gap where fillers grow.

You don't need to script an entire talk. Just write the first sentence of each section. That's enough to eliminate the transition pause.

The fastest way to measure progress

You can't fix what you can't see. Record a 3-minute video of yourself presenting something you know well. Count the fillers. That's your baseline. Record the same content a week later after practicing the techniques above. The improvement is usually dramatic and immediate.

VozPilot's post-session report tracks filler word count automatically, so you get the data without having to count manually.

The real goal: presence, not perfection

Zero fillers isn't the target. Natural speech has rhythm, and even skilled speakers use the occasional "well" or "so." The goal is dropping from 8 fillers per minute to 1 or 2 — enough to sound fluent and confident without sounding robotic.

That shift takes most people about two weeks of conscious practice. After that, it becomes automatic.

Try VozPilot's live filler word coach →