Unknown Caller... I mean, annoyed caller.

Picture this. Monday 11:10am, you are in the middle of an important document, you have been sneezing all night, your nose is stuffed, your eyes all watery, your throat hurts... in other words, your allergies are killing you (though it actually seems like you are getting sick).

Before you read the actual incident, please picture the commercial from Chase I believe, where a guy calls customer service and a guy in the middle of Antarctica by the name of Lucy takes the phone call and hangs up after he is not able to understand what the cardholder wants.

Any how, so the phone rings, and the call goes something like this:

Caller: "Hello, is Mr. Iñiez (enneaus) there?"

Me: Annoyed by the fact that he is not able to pronounce my last name correctly and with a strong tone reply: "I'm sorry... who? Mr Iñiez?"

Caller: "Mmmmhhhh.... Hello, is Mr. Iñiez (enneaus) there?"

Me: Even more annoyed now, as he seems to not be paying attention. Do you mean Mr. Muñoz?

Caller: "Ummmm... sorry, no espaniol" and hang up.

All I could think was "seriously?!"
I mean the guys could pay attention to what was going on, and because of the fact that he couldn't pronounce my last name he assumed that I couldn't speak the language!! WOW! As I hung up the phone by taking off the speaker all I that came to mind was... wow, he might have actually lost a sale just by the fact that he couldn't pay attention and eliminate his preconceived prejudices.

Well to be honest I seriously doubt I would have bought whatever he might have been selling, but you get the point.

Question:

Am I over-analyzing the situation?
Should I give him the benefit of the doubt?

To close today's post, I asked myself, as a marketer/researcher/planner/advertiser, how many times have I being the caller, where I just assume wrong because of my preconceived prejudices?? When have you?!

Comments

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