Well this lovely, long bank holiday weekend has now finished and I’m back at work. And of course today was crazy! Call after call after call. Some pleasant, some downright awkward, and some unbelievably stupid.
I also had a few people trying very hard to hide their accent and speak in a posh voice. We get this from time to time. Nothing wrong with it at all. There are times when each of us try to speak better, for instance if we’re ringing the bank manager. You can always tell when someone is trying to get their pronunciation and grammar right on the phone. There’s a lot of ‘Ers’ and ‘Ahrs’, a lot of clearing the throat, and the customer always seems to have difficulty telling us what they actually want. If they spoke as they normally would they’d get to the point quicker and save a lot of time.
I also had the obligatory internet call. This is where the customer is looking at the internet when they decide to call. It’s always the same procedure. They tell me they want a quote on a particular policy. I ask them how they heard about it. They tell me they’re looking at it on the internet, to which I ask them for the name of the cover. They rarely know the name even though it is on the web page that they are looking at, but they can always tell me the price. So they’ll say something like ‘I’m looking at the £60 cover without excess’.
‘Ok, I know which one it is now. How can I help you with this?’
‘Can you give me a quote?’
‘It’s the price that you’re looking at.’ Is my normal answer.
