If I live long enough, I fully expect that one day that I will become a Jedi Master of grumpy old bastards. When it comes to being a grumpy old bastard, The Force, as they say, is strong in this one.
And consequently I positively welcome ‘cold’ sales calls as they enable me to hone my grumpy old bastard skills to a fine edge.
Today was a particularly fine day for honing…
Sales Call No.1 – The Credit Card Company
Stef cold called by his credit card company. After some preamble…
Sales Rep: And would you like to take out our repayment protection coverage?
Stef: No thank you
Sales Rep: Why Not?
Stef: I’m sorry. Did you just ask me why not?
Sales Rep: Yes I did. The package offers significant benefits that I think you should know about
Stef: And I have to explain to you why I am not interested? How’s that?
Sales Rep: Er …
Stef: You can go away now
Sales Rep: I’m sorr …
Stef: No, really. You can go away now
Sales call No.2 – The Mobile Phone Company
Stef’s Mobile rings. Stef answers mobile
Female voice ,calling from what sounds like a room filled with two hundred people all shouting at each other, mumbles something unrecognizable
Stef: I’m sorry I can’t hear you.
Female voice: mumble that better? mumble calling from Orange mumble mumble
Stef: I still can’t hear you. You say you’re calling from Orange?
Voice: mumble your full name and postcode? mumble
Stef: You want my name and postcode?
Voice: mumble data protection mumble know who mumble
Stef: You want my name and postcode to confirm who I am?
Voice: mumble
Stef: And who are you?
Voice: mumble from Orange mumble
Stef: How do I know you’re calling from Orange? You are some stranger who has just phoned me up from out of the blue asking me for personal details
Voice: mumble
Voice: mumble mumble
Stef turns phone off and leaves it off
5 comments:
F*cking hilarious Stef - you have described my stock responses to sales calls for the last 5 years.
I love the ones where they ask you to confirm some personal details. It beggars belief.
In a tangentially related incident, my work phone rang at about 11pm yesterday, while I was just coming out of the tube.
Wondering what to say to the nutter who was ringing me I heard only footsteps. Oddly the footsteps slowed down and stopped exactly as I did. Yes, I was ringing myself from my back pocket.
The favoured tactic of The Antagonist in dealing with unsolicited cold-calls is to listen to the initial blurb before stating something along the lines of, "That sounds very interesting and I'd love to know more but could you just hold the line a minute?"
After which, the mute button on the phone gets hit, the phone is put to one side and one can then go about one's business without further interruption.
The great thing about doing this is that all the time the cold-caller is on hold, they're not bothering you, nor are they bothering anyone else, and it's costing the firm for which they work a whole bunch of cash to have their employees sitting around on hold, selling nothing to anyone and bothering no one very much.
LOL - Brilliant - except the poor sod then gets fired for underperforming.
@de - oh yes, I like that story, yes I do
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