1 GIF I don’t know about everyone else out there, but I have a pretty negative association with the word “telemarketer.” You don’t exa...
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I don’t know about everyone else out there, but I have a pretty negative association with the word “telemarketer.” You don’t exactly picture anything particularly heroic or noble when you hear that word.
Which is why this story is so… Strange. This is a story from the perspective of a telemarketer, and it doesn’t go the way you’d expect. At all.
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This happened a few years back. I was a telemarketer in the best telemarketing job you could get. I was basically calling old people who had been off contract for a year or so and getting them onto new plans that saved them money. It was really rewarding. They often got to save $20 or more per month, the company got 2 more years of contract, and I got paid. Everyone wins.
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Anyway, I called this little old lady. She used the internet occasionally, but not as much as her late husband. She didn’t know much about the services as he normally handed the bills, and had just dutifully paid the bill each month. I looked at her account, and I immediately saw that she was paying waaay too much for her services. I told her as such and offered the best services based on her usage as I could.
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Ended up with a total savings of around $80 per month – which is a hell of a lot for anyone let alone a pensioner. After all the scripts had been read and I had entered the sales into processing, the old lady tearfully thanked me for saving her money and said that she was going to put the saved money aside for a holiday.
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Enter the son. He apparently freaked out when his mother told him about the sales call. He immediately assumed I had cheated his mother out of money and called my company raging about me. The sale got reversed (there was a 48 hour grace period before sales were final) and I lost out on a good commission. I was pissed. Not only had the son screwed me over, but he had also screwed his elderly mother out of money. It was then I began to form a plan to get back at him.
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I spoke to my manager and explained what was going on, and convinced her to put a callback into the system to the old lady. I called the old lady and explained what happened. As soon as I began to explain that the order had been cancelled, she exploded about her son constantly sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. She quickly agreed to my plan and called up her son on her mobile to get him to drive over immediately (he lived about 5 minutes away).
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I’ll call the son S, the old lady OL, and me is me.
OL: Hey S, the nice man from the other day is on the phone with me. Would you like to speak to him?
S: Oh what the fuck is he calling back for? I told them not to call us back.
OL: Well, he wants to speak to you, specifically.
There’s a moment where the phone is changing hands.
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S: What the hell do you want, mate? I told you lot to not call back.
Me: Of course, but I wanted to be absolutely clear that you really wanted the order cancelled.
S: Of course I want it cancelled. That’s what I told you fuckers to do.
Me: I appreciate where you are coming from, but could I please explain the changes I had pending in the system?
S: Why?
Me: Can I please just explain it? Then, if you don’t want them, I won’t bother you again.
S: *sigh* Fine, go ahead.
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Me: Excellent. Well, your mother is paying $50 for her phone line. She never makes STD calls, so I dropped the line to a plan without them. She can still make free local calls and the cost is down to $30 a month. The internet is currently $60 a month, and gives her 100GB of data, but, in the last 3 years she has never used more than 10GB per month, so, I dropped it down to 25GB per month and it’s now $30 a month. On her mobile, she never uses the internet, and the plans are the same otherwise, so I dropped it down from $59 a month to $29 a month.
S: Okay.
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Me: So, she was paying $169 a month, and would now pay $89 a month for all three services.
S: So what stops me from going to a (company) shop and getting it done there?
Me: Well, your mother said she struggles to get around, and she is the only one on the bill, so she would need to be there in person. I can get it done right now, no trouble.
S: Well, I’ll just call and…
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OL: *in background* God damn it, S, would you stop being such an incalcitrant little prick and let the man do his job? He’s going to save me some money and that’s good enough for me. Quit giving him grief and let him do it already.
S: Okay, okay. God damn it.
OL: Good, now bugger off and stop causing me trouble. I might be old, but I’m not bloody senile, and you’d be best to remember that I’m your mum at the end of the day. *pause* Go on, get back to work.
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The phone is handed back to the old lady, and I hear a door slam in the background. The old lady busts out laughing, and we both end up laughing at him. She told me that it was great fun and it’s a pity we can’t do it again to make it stick. We had to do the scripts again, but she didn’t mind, and at the end of the call told me that if I ever came through her town, to come and drop by for a cup of tea and a biscuit.
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She was a lovely old lady – most of them are. I left that job about 6 years ago, but I still think fondly on some of those calls.
Don’t ever underestimate the elderly. They have you on experience and can be incredibly crafty.