Doing business on the phone
Grandad January 11th, 2008
You know how I love phoning call centres and chatting to people who can’t speak English?
You know how I love cold callers?
Sometimes there are upsides to both of them.
Last Sunday [Yes - Sunday - a day of rest when we are supposed to be doing nothing except praying], I received a cold call. It was from my Internet Service Provider. The bloke was foreign, of course.
“Allo Grandad. Ow is your Internet connection?”
“Fine” says I.
“Are you sure? Ve have a report dat says you have problem?”
I logged on, connected to the White House and changed all Dubya’s files replacing ‘Iran’ with ‘Iowa’.
“There’s no problem at all. It’s working very well. When was this call logged?”
“November last year”
I don’t often laugh out loud when talking to a call centre, but there is an exception to every rule.
-oOo-
Yesterday, I got a reminder from my oil company. I hadn’t paid the last bill. I decided to phone them rather than go through the trouble of writing a cheque and going to the Post Office.
Straight away, I got the recorded message about how all their operators are busy and could I please hold on and how they appreciated my service. I sighed, but at least I didn’t have to press any buttons.
After about ten seconds, the phone was answered by a very pleasant chap. He was Irish.
I asked if he could take the payment over the phone, and he said that was no problem at all, at all. He was very chatty. A nice lad.
Herself has a habit of talking to me when I’m on the phone, and this time she told me to ask him if we could have a discount for being a regular customer! She is the greatest chancer.
“What did she say” asked Yer Man.
“She wants to know if we can have a discount for being a regular customer” I said.
“Hold on.”
Half a minute later, he was back. He quoted me a new price. He had knocked the best part of €100 off!
I was so surprised, I ordered a new delivery even though we don’t need it.
“We’ll be around tomorrow”
“There’s no hurry” I said, “we still have half a tank.”
“No” says he “You’re good customers. He’ll be around in the morning. And he’ll have a voucher with him you can use each time you order, so the discount is permanent.”
As I was typing this, my phone rang. It was the oil delivery man. He was full of apologies. He won’t be able to make it this morning.
He’ll be coming at one in the afternoon.
There are some Irish companies [not many] who still appreciate a good customer.
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