SALES TRAINING - WHAT NOT TO DO!

This is recent call I received. I kid you not!

"Am I speaking to Ann C.......?"
"Yes, may I ask whose calling?"
"This is Choice Catalogue, how are you?"
"How am I?"
"Yes, how are you?
"Ummm -  I'm OK - what are you calling me for?"
"Before I can tell you that I just need you to confirm your postcode so that I know I'm talking to the right person"
"But you are calling me.. why do I need to prove who I am when your the one that's calling ?"
 "Because you could be anyone.."
 "But you just called me!"
"Yes"
"And this is the number you have taken from my account details which you have there ?"
"Yes"
" O.K. so you called and asked for me by name and I confirmed that it was me ?"
" Yes that's right "
"And asked if I was OK. ?
"Yes "
"And now I have to prove who I am to you before you can go ahead and try to sell me what exactly ?"
" I'm afraid I can't discuss that with you unless I can confirm who I'm talking to.........."

You couldn't make this up if you tried.......

BROTHER, SISTER, LET ME SERVE YOU

We sang this in Church yesterday and I absolutely love it.  This is who I aspire to be, but have been known to sometimes fall abysmally short!   If only we could all be this way think what a wonderful place this world would be.

 

Brother, sister, let me serve you,
 let me be as Christ to you;
 pray that I may have the grace to
 let you be my servant too.

 

 We are pilgrims on a journey,
 and companions on the road;
 we are here to help each other
 walk the mile and bear the load.

 

 I will hold the Christ-light for you
 in the night-time of your fear;
 I will hold my hand out to you,
 speak the peace you long to hear.

 

 I will weep when you are weeping;
 when you laugh I’ll laugh with you;
 I will share your joy and sorrow
 till we’ve seen this journey through.

 

 When we sing to God in heaven
 we shall find such harmony,
 born of all we’ve known together
 of Christ’s love and agony.

 

 Brother, sister, let me serve you,
 let me be as Christ to you;
 pray that I may have the grace to
 let you be my servant too. 

 

I certainly didn't feel like this on Saturday when I was trying to sort out my bank account.  My bank has been "acquired" by another bank which, over the past few weeks, has sent me scholes of instructions on what would happen and the procedure for accessing on-line banking. 

 

So, I tried to follow the instructions on Friday, managed to lock myself out of the card reader, tried to seek advice over the "phone, and after wading through all the "options" found out I wasn't registered for telephone banking.  Tell me something that I don't know you twerp. I eventually ran out of patients and very nearly life!

 

Saturday morning, bright and breezy I woke up determined to crack the problem.  I started the process at 9 am and by lunch time I was bemused, befuddled and bewildered having spoken to several delightful young call centre staff who "weren't trained" to help me with my problem.  Eventually I was told that my call was being transferred to someone that could help. 

 

Before I could explain the problem this person started off by saying "type in your 4 digit pin, etc. etc."  I tried to stop her at this stage to say that not only was my pin 5 digits long, but by this stage I was actually locked out of everything.  She was obviously reading from a script and couldn't deviate long enough to listen to me. 

 

Much to my embarrassment I ended up shouting at her.  She paused, "No 4 digit pin?" "No"  "But you were sent one" "I wasn't" "Are you sure?" "YES!" "Well in that case we will have to send you another one, it will take about 5 days to reach you" by this time I was totally deflated "OK"  "Someone will call you to discuss this further because we can't unlock your card reader from here, you will have to go to the nearest branch of this bank and follow the instructions on the screen".  And, I must admit, it was not my finest hour when I slammed the 'phone down yelling "WHATEVER!"

 

I then waited for the 'phone call.  None came.  Wait a minute, let's think about this.  "Calm down" I told myself "check through all the stuff they sent".  And do you know what, there it was, the 4 digit pin! Drat!  The 5 digit pin was for telephone banking!  WHAT?!

 

Now the problem became different - if I didn't hurry they would cancel my newly found pin, so I dashed to the bank, unlocked my card reader, hurried home and hey presto, I now have on-line access again.  Whew.  All's right with the world again.

 

Technology makes life so much easier doesn't it?