Phone Manners

Having a new home address phone numbers mean lots of new people calling me. They call me to make me great offers. Lawn care. Dog walkers. Filtered water. Home security. Pest control. Newspaper delivery. Driveway paving. A year of de-linting my belly button.

I always try to be polite and gracious, but efficient. I understand you are at work. You need to understand that I am at home. We’re not both on the clock here – you are, in essence, invading my private time, so be considerate.

This isn’t a rant on telemarketing. I could rant on that, but let’s just assume for now that telemarketing is going to be in our lives for a while, so we need to make the experience less unpleasant.

When you call my home, have the courtesy to:

• Get the name right. I know my husband’s surname can also be a first name, but you ought to know which one is the first name before you ask for Mr. Stewart, if the name on your list is James Stewart or Stewart James makes a difference to the person you are calling. After all, it is his name.
• When you are asked to leave a message, do not do the following:
• Hang up
• Say, “I’ll call back later” without identifying yourself and your reason for calling
• Sigh
• Act like this is a huge inconvenience for you. No one is under any obligation to be home to take an unsolicited call.
• When you are asked what this is in regards to, that means I am asking who you are and why you are calling. If I ask what this is in regards to and you ask again to speak to him or when a better time would be to contact him, know that he is already determined not to use your service. I can’t speak for other households, but we discuss all financial decisions before we make them. Dealing only with him may seem like a good tactic, but he deals with me when you aren’t around – which is all the freaking time.
• When you make me a great offer and I say I would like to see it in writing, do not attempt to strong-arm me. It’ll just make me say no. Time and again Scott has had the amusement of listening to me ask for it in writing, explain to the telemarketer that if I can’t review it I can’t take the offer, and then tell them I distrust any organization that refuses to put offers in writing. Understand that your potential customers want to read the deal. Have a way to provide it and time to digest it. If you don’t, you’ll never see a dime from me.
• Speaking of great offers, my general response to “limited-time, once in a lifetime offers,” is to say, “Shucks, I guess I am going to miss out on this one. I am sure I will kick myself later.”
• Do not call during the following hours:
  
  • Before 9 AM M - F, 10 AM on Saturday and Sunday. We’re talking local time. I once got some amazingly mathematically challenged dofus who called me in Tucson at 6 AM, It’s 9 AM here… die.
  
  
  • During normal dinner hours. This is family time. I’m sorry that you are working this shift, I know it sucks. Certainly you can pester someone outside of the dinner time range in another time zone or do your administrative tasks during this time.
  
  
  • After 9 PM, 7 days a week. I don’t have kids, but if I did they would be in bed by 9. Regardless, this is around the time that family calls come in when they come, and I want to be available for my family. If you call during these hours? You lose my business. It’s that simple.
• Do not eat, drink, chew, burp or make any oral noises besides speaking while you are on the phone with me. I don’t want to hear it or imagine what is happening to you.
• Speak slowly and clearly. You have no idea how good my hearing is. You have no idea how much of HelloMrs.XMynameisSylviaandIamcallingfromtheAcmecompany my brain will catch and digest. Go too fast and I’ll make you do the whole damn thing over again.
• Same thing when you try to get the whole offer out before I can even finish saying hello. If you talk that fast, I didn’t catch more than every third or fourth word. So, when I hear an offer like Acme Toilet Reduction – how am I to know that what you said was, We here at Acme Plumbing and Supplies are having a store-wide sale on all Toilets and Vanities – it’s a huge reduction in cost of our entire inventory. I mean, Acme Toilet Reduction? Sounds totally unappealing.

Now here’s the real rub. I almost never agree to anything over the phone. Unless I was about to call you (like when I had setting up Pest Control on my to-do list and you called me) then I am probably not interested in your product. I don’t care how inexpensive it is. I don’t care how cool it is. I don’t care how good the offer is. I don’t care how shiny it is. In the internet age I know that if I want it, I can find it. Sure, I’ll have to pay for shipping, but it’s worth it to see it, read about it, and decide.

But I am guessing there must be some business incentive to have telemarketers. Otherwise, I can’t fathom why these people would be employed.

I know you will call. When you do, be polite, have the kind of manners that would make your grandmother proud. Maybe your great-grandmother, for some of you up-and-coming telemarketers.

Know that I will say no as politely and quickly as I can. I will ask you to put me on your do-not-call list. As much as it pains you to do so, simply say, I will. Thank you for your time.

See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?