British Telecom are our suppliers for Broadband and phone services and today an offer came in with the mail for an improvement. It is for unlimited calls up to 60mins during the day, and it turns out that this works out £3.00 per quarter cheaper than we are currently paying. In addition, the first 3 months are free.
All well and good. The website didn’t have the same offer of the free months so it meant dealing with the dreaded queue waiting. For a start I obviously pressed a wrong button and ended up in a loop I couldn’t get out of. Keep patience and start again, I told myself. Eventually I got through to the suitable department only to be told there was a long queue and if I wanted, they would phone back within an hour.
All well and good again. Within ten minutes “Danielle” phoned back. But she talked so quickly I couldn’t get exactly what she was saying. Her accent was OK – southeast England I think. However, she mumbled the end of her words. Three times I asked her to “speak slowly please” and to give her her due she really did try. But the experience took far longer than necessary. She had to keep putting me on hold to check things and even the holding music (Handel) was mumbling.
My suspicion is that the operative was in a Call Centre where payment or bonuses depended on number of calls per hour (or something similar.) She made things longer than they needed to be with me, simply because I couldn’t understand or catch what she was saying.
Oh dear! Is this another effect of growing up?
I often find that people who fit, even loosely, in the category of “telemarketer” talk fast and are difficult to understand. I have some hearing loss, but it is not usually a problem on the phone, just when I’m in a noisy environment and trying to listen to people talk. It is too bad that those folks don’t understand that everyone would benefit if they spoke more distinctly, and nerves on either end of the line would be less frayed at the end!
Off your topic, I have a comment. I have found that when I am notified that you have published a post, I’m unable to access it for about three hours afterward. Not sure what is going on, but I simply can’t convince the internet deities to let me read until they are good and ready! Strange phenomenon. Unless you’re a spy for Scotland, and the CIA is checking your content before releasing it. Yes, you seem suspicious to me. LOL!!!
Oops, Lynn, not sure I like the idea of being checked up on. I’ll try to do some research to see if I can find out anything. (Though it will have to be tomorrow now!) Thanks for commenting and for not being put off about coming back to look.
Oh my, I feel your pain. The way people mumble now when they never did when I was younger. I also wrote about this problem in http://wellagedwithsomemarbling.blogspot.com/2010/03/cybil-cyber-lady.html
If people would just articulate, all would be well.