How to use the telephone, and reduce world chaos
Of late I’ve reached near nuclear levels of frustration dealing with people on the phone. This is nothing new, if you’re one of the call centre workers who’s rung me to try and sell me a new mobile phone contract and I’ve either used the airhorn on you or put you on hold by leaving the phone next to the radio, you’ll know how much phones infuriate me.
No, the new thing driving me crazy, is ladies of a certain age not announcing who they are. Calls then fall into one of two patterns, The Repeating Hello or The Insulted.
The Repeater:
- (pick up phone)
- (me) Hello Coldclimate Towers
- (them) Hello
- (me) Hi
- (them) Hello
- (at this point this may loop round the cycle again as many times as need until my patience breaks and I move on to..)
- (me) Hi, who’s speaking?
- (them) What?
- (me) It’s Coldclimate here, who are you trying to get through to?
- (them) Coldclimate? (or at this point, they name a random member of the rest of the clan)
- (me) Yes, Hi
- (them) Hello.
Eventually They get confused and just start talking, sometimes I’m none the wiser who it is, and very pissed off.
The Insulted:
- (pick up phone)
- (me) Hello, Coldclimate House of Love
- (them) Hello, it’s me, im wondering if you’re making it to the Magic Circle Spider Organizing book club this week, because Sid’s not going to make it and we’re…
- (me, interrupting) Wow – wow – hang on a second, who’s speaking please?
- (them) It’s me, anyway, the Spider Organising thing are you able to
- (me, interupting again) Sorry, you’ll have to bear with me I was just doing the accounts, who’s speaking, I’m a bit lost?
- (them, now insulted that I don’t know them) It’s me Lady Jeff jeff de Jeff, we met last year at that Teaparty in the Forbes Hameltons?
- (me) Oh, yes, hi, how can I help you? Sorry about that I was in the middle of something a bit complex and didn’t have my brain wasn’t in gear.
- (them) Well, I’ve said, we need you to…
And there the sad tale end, they’re pissed off, I’m confused, and the level of rage in the world has gone up just a bit more.
The problems all stem from the fact that these people all expect you to recognise who they are form their voice, probably because they don’t call that many people, and don’t receive calls from that many people, and thus recognise everybody who rings them. It never occurs to them that I speak to upwards of 30 people a day, many of whom a have never spoken to before, and who have a multitude of accents.
So, some simple lessons when ringing somebody:
- Say who you are
- Say who you want to speak to
- Say slowly, when you rang them they were probably doing something else,meaning they will need a little time to come up to speed and switch paradigms from whatever it is they were doing.
- Don’t launch into a massive diatribe about whatever it is you rang about until the person you’re ringing has acknowledged who you are.
There – simple – use that script when you ring somebody, and no matter who it is, they won’t end up wanting to poke you eyeballs out with a broomhandle.
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