So my Dad is staying with me for a while. It’s always interesting when the phone rings because he and I have the same name. Some people on the other end handle this just fine. Others? Well not so well. Example:
ME: Hello
Them: Can I talk to <our name>?
ME: Can you tell me what it is about? There are two <our name> here.
Them: Oh I’m sorry. I’ll call back later.
Say what? Clearly I went too far off script for them.
The other problem lately seems to be people who don’t understand English very well. I can’t believe how much spelling out of simple things my Dad has been having to do. And his frustration as people seem to fail to grasp that he is actually changing information on them. He was staying at my brother’s home for quite a while but we’ve switched off and he’s staying with me now. Both my brother’s town and my town end in “ville” and some people seem to not hear the first syllable.
Are companies really saving money by hiring people who struggle with the language and/or who have poor listening skills? Somehow I doubt it.
This is a lot like what happened when I called Verizon! She couldn’t find me by my phone number on file or by my account number, so she had me give my email. It was close to a five-minute exchange.
She tried to direct me to visit a website; I couldn’t understand what she was saying, and it sounded a bit like a well-known porn site. After the third time of me not understanding it, I asked her to spell it. V-E-R-I-Z-O-N dot com. What she was saying didn’t sound ANYTHING like Verizon. And she *completely* misunderstood why I was calling — I was calling because the website didn’t work for me.