Disclaimer:This post contains a brief summary of a conversation between myself and a customer, due to the fact I’d be breaking the law if I went into any further detail.
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I said a couple of weeks ago, that I would write a summary of weird customers. On thursday just before I went home sick, I had to take a call. It started out something like this - one of the girls in my team who sits in front of me called for my attention.
“Lori” she said, taking her headset off, “this man, he wants to come and shoot us!”
I looked at her with dry sandy eyeballs, and said “huh?”
“Lori, he wants a supervisor, or he’s going to come down and shoot us!”
At this point my brain started revving up a bit. I know there’s a procedure for threats like this, but I really can’t think what it is.
“have you tried to ID him?”
“he’s not a customer of our’s Lori, he’s with Telstra, and he wants to shoot us!”
At this point in time, I am intrigued, a Telstra customer wanting to shoot us. Interesting.
“Sure I will take the call, just put him through to my extention XXXX, thanks”
So I bring up my screen, I am sure it’s an X customer of ours who’s got a bill, and sure enough as I start talking to him, I get the old customer number and there it pops up. Oh look, says my brain, he is from Perth, he could come and shoot us if he wanted. I ignore my brain and keep flicking through the notes on the account and pause. I know this guy, I have dealt with him before, my brain muses and engages thinking mode and commences a verbal duel with this fellow.
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I am just not in the mood to talk to anyone, my throat is killing me and I sound like I have swallowed half a boiled potatoe and it’s stuck. A few things are said back and forth. He starts swearing and then he says those words again, to me.
“I am so sick of yas bullshit, I should just come down there and shoot the fuck out of you all”
“It’s illegal to make threats like that over a telephone carrier service sir, and please stop swearing, no need for that language”
“I don’t care if it’s illegal”", and with that I get irritated.
“Well you should care, it can result in jail time for you. This is a recorded line” I paused, he went silent.
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I had him, so I went in for the kill. Keep in mind that I am tired, cranky, my throat is a bitch and I want to rip it out.
“Obviously you didn’t listen to our conversation a few weeks ago so I will again summarise. blahblahblahblahblahblah, and now your account is closed.”
“But what about me? I am a loyal customer until all this shit happened and you pissed me off.”
ALERT! He called himself a loyal customer, he left us. I really don’t like those “loyal” customers.
“Sir, if you were loyal you would have stayed. As it stands, you have left, I’m sorry you are gone, but that’s that. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“err, no, thanks… “” *click*
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There, I said it finally. If you were loyal you would have stayed. I have always wanted to say that to a customer and thursday was it.
Excellent! You really took the wind out of his sails.
Well handled. Did you get it on tape though?
And the half a boiled potato down the throat should do you well in speaking Danish. Or Swedish. Or Norwegian. The Danes and the Norwegians have a joke about how the other languages sound.
Hey Hammy: i have got it recorded, i wasn’t bluffing we do record about 98% of all incoming calls into the centre.
I kid you not about the talking like I had a mouth full of potatoe. I could feel the back of my throat, when sometimes I tried to form words up against the back of my yongue. Was horrible. I don’t think one should be able to feel one’s epiglottis
ACW: probably not the best thing I have done, but you know, it gets tiring dealing with “loyal” customers.
On principle, I’d report it to the cops and have him charged. *especially* if it’s on tape