Are you DEAF?!

[Evil Queen]

I read this complaint here a lot and I'm not sure it is valid, especially with corporate businesses.

Look around and listen to the calls. How many signs and messages on the voice jail systems are information usefull to the customer and how many are "buy more of our shit"?

It's not surprising that people tune them out.

My opening spiel is rather long but I do sound human on the phone because I tend to flub my lines. I change them depending on the day from "Good afternoon" (I generally come on shift at 3pm) to "Good Evening" and the one time I worked 12 a day two days a week for 4 weeks included "good morning" as well.

My opening lines are generally "Good Afternoon! Thank you for calling <Blah Blah and Blah>, this is EQ, how can I help you?"

In case Mr Deaf hadn't noticed. I did not say I worked for Choice hotels (because, no, I do not) and there is no automated anything in my hotel outside the movie rental channel.

[Andara Bledin]

1.) I knew that customer's tune out when we say our opening spiel when one of my co-workers consistently got away with answering the phone, " Fuck you very much for calling the <company> helpline. Can I get your telephone number?"

Well, actually, that might not necessarily be true.

I know that the phone system at my work, for example, doesn't actually start transmitting immediately. I figured out rather quickly that if I waited about a second before I started speaking, I got a lot fewer people asking me if we were the company whose name I gave in my greeting.

^-.-^

[Brightglaive]

Another example of customers not listening on the phone (and they can miss something good ... )

A co-worker of mine back from my pizza-slingin' days was takin' an order on the phone. She's a girl. With a very girly voice.

She's going through the motions, asking the customer (a male) if they wanted original, thin or deep dish. Of course she messed up and with a simple slip of the tongue, she accidentally replaced dish with dick.

Yes. She asked the customer if he wanted original, thin or deep dick.

The customer never even noticed .

Two examples that Customers are deaf or tune out what you say when you answer the phone.

1.) I knew that customer's tune out when we say our opening spiel when one of my co-workers consistently got away with answering the phone, " Fuck you very much for calling the <company> helpline. Can I get your telephone number?"

2.) I knew that customers tune out when, due to a misprint from several companies, people kept dialing voice trunk telephone numbers that corresponded to calls from the UK or from internal company phones. The system would automatically dump them into an IVR that tells them, "Thank you for calling <company>. To better serve you please pick from the following options..." followed by several options that pertained to only to my company which is a networking technology company. When I answered the phone I would say, "Thank you for calling <company> helpline. Can I get your phone number?" Ineveitably they would ask one of four questions:

A.) Is this red envelope? (mail order catalog)
B.) I'd like to order X. How much will that be with shipping? ( X being some item of clothing or unrelated product to what my company sells.)
C.) Is this CAC Financial? (collections agency)
D.) I want to know why someone is calling me and sending me letters that my bill is overdue,. Is Y there?

I always listen to the IVR unles I've been through it 5 times on the one call. By then I've got it memorized or I'm hitting "0".

[Primer]

I read this complaint here a lot and I'm not sure it is valid, especially with corporate businesses.

Look around and listen to the calls. How many signs and messages on the voice jail systems are information usefull to the customer and how many are "buy more of our shit"?

It's not surprising that people tune them out.

love it! definitely NOT a typo!

[thehippie777]

yeah so I have learned that the other person on the other end of the phone does not listen...cuz I have to repeat the hotel name about 80% of the time. Now when I call somewhere, I listen really well & use the person's name on the other end (if they say it).

[Evil Queen]

I think you mean "spiel": http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary

Fixed! Thank you!

[karma_gypsy]

Another example of customers not listening on the phone (and they can miss something good ... )

A co-worker of mine back from my pizza-slingin' days was takin' an order on the phone. She's a girl. With a very girly voice.

She's going through the motions, asking the customer (a male) if they wanted original, thin or deep dish. Of course she messed up and with a simple slip of the tongue, she accidentally replaced dish with dick.

Yes. She asked the customer if he wanted original, thin or deep dick.




The customer never even noticed .

[Music Mo-Gal]

Me: Opening Spheal.

I think you mean "spiel": http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary

[Anthony K. S.]

Ooooh, comic strip time!

This thread reminds me of one of one of my favorite strips from Norm Feuti's famed "Retail" . . .

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/re...?date=20060801

Well, as chinashirtgirl pointed out, you have to at least give the caller credit for asking for confirmation!


On a more serious note . . .

I read this complaint here a lot and I'm not sure it is valid, especially with corporate businesses.

Look around and listen to the calls. How many signs and messages on the voice jail systems are information usefull to the customer and how many are "buy more of our shit"?

It's not surprising that people tune them out.

<Shrug>

Hey, look, people choose to tune out those messages, just like they choose not to read signs, read the backs of receipts, etc. And they do so at their own risk.

If you don't want to listen to the message, fine. But don't blame the company when you wind up missing out on important information. It was your choice to tune it out, after all.

If the guy in the OP missed out on the name of the hotel because he tuned out the opening message . . . In my opinion, he was foolish to tune out the message since it might have contained something important. And he was an SC because he acted like it was somebody else's fault that he missed information in a message he chose not to listen to.

[Mark Healey]

Great, another quality of SC's: they don't read signs in stores, and they don't listen to the information at the beginning of the call

I read this complaint here a lot and I'm not sure it is valid, especially with corporate businesses.

Look around and listen to the calls. How many signs and messages on the voice jail systems are information usefull to the customer and how many are "buy more of our shit"?

It's not surprising that people tune them out.

[chinashirtgirl]

[QUOTE=Apathy;335472]

Me: Hello, *store*, Furniture.

Idiot: Is this furniture?

[QUOTE]

Yeah, that sucks, but at least you get asked for confirmation! If the guy in the OP had done that maybe he would have found out it wasn't the hotel he was looking for!! *Jedi*This is not the hotel you are looking for!*Jedi*

[DarkProwler]

Sometimes I think people like that hear only what they want to hear, the rest is all Charlie Brown-esque: 'wah wah wah wah wah wah'.

Off topic slightly, but I didn't know where else on the site to ask: Has anyone else noticed a trend at drive thru's, in which the sales clerk ringing the meal up speaks so fast that you can't understand a thing they just said? I'm not talking about faulty equipment either, just a retail version of those guys at the end of car commercials... "I'msayingeverythingsofastthatyoucan'tellwhatisbei ngsaidbutyou'llnodandsmilesoyoudon'tlookstupid" kind of stuff.

I'm desperately hoping I wasn't sucky but I did mention it to the next person in the drive thru, and she said that it was because the one taking orders was under a timed limit, she couldn't spend more than half a minute or something like that, on each car.

I hate to tell this to the management that came up with that doozy but if I can't understand what's being said, I'm just going to waste more of your time when I drive up to get my order to make sure it's correct.

Anyone else having that problem?

I get that all the time at my local McDonald's, but it's usually just from one girl:

"---lcometoMcDonald'scanItakeyourord--"
"Saltpepperketchup?"
"---9'syourtotalpleasepullforw--"

Every... freaking... time...

[Samaliel]

Well, if ignorance is bliss, absolute obliviousness should be freaking Nirvana.
Add a touch of denial for the taste, and you know why you feel bad while SCs seem to be pretty happy with their lives...

[Snowbird]

Sometimes I think people like that hear only what they want to hear, the rest is all Charlie Brown-esque: 'wah wah wah wah wah wah'.

Off topic slightly, but I didn't know where else on the site to ask: Has anyone else noticed a trend at drive thru's, in which the sales clerk ringing the meal up speaks so fast that you can't understand a thing they just said? I'm not talking about faulty equipment either, just a retail version of those guys at the end of car commercials... "I'msayingeverythingsofastthatyoucan'tellwhatisbei ngsaidbutyou'llnodandsmilesoyoudon'tlookstupid" kind of stuff.

I'm desperately hoping I wasn't sucky but I did mention it to the next person in the drive thru, and she said that it was because the one taking orders was under a timed limit, she couldn't spend more than half a minute or something like that, on each car.

I hate to tell this to the management that came up with that doozy but if I can't understand what's being said, I'm just going to waste more of your time when I drive up to get my order to make sure it's correct.

Anyone else having that problem?

[Reyneth]

Ack! I had two people call me today and realize they called a wrong number. One was asking if we were the 'student loan people.' (methinks he owes a lot of people money!)

Of course, to get to an agent you do have to hear our company name at least TWICE. I know. I call it every night to see if they've corrected our system so calls don't go to vm after 11 when we're there until 12.

I rarely have those calls - and two today! Damned full moon.