As a follow on from last month's blog, I received a call about eight weeks ago and then surprisingly another call again yesterday from the same New Zealand owned telephone and internet company. The experience was awful and my opinion of this company is now at an all time low.
The call scripting of the call was at best poor and there was no flexibility from the outbound caller in what they were saying to me. There was zero relationship building at the start of the call and the tone of the caller was monotone, dull and there was no interest about my needs.
This business surely has to be the exception to what is happening out there? But receiving two calls from this company and having the same script given each time, with the same results, I’m deeply concerned.
The first call went something like this (not verbatim, and shortened version):
‘Hello'
[Long pause]
‘Hello my name is… from…. How are you today?'
‘Fine’ [uninterested tone in voice from me]
[Long pause]
‘That is really great madam’ [more standard call scripting sentences for a few more seconds, then] ‘How much do you spend with your current provider for your tolls?’
'I don’t know as I pay a flat fee every month so get unlimited calls’
[Long pause]
‘So are you saying over $10 for your tolls’
'No, I'm saying I don’t know how much as I pay a flat fee’
[Long pause]
'So you are saying over $10'? [I kid you not]
‘No, I don’t know’. [Slightly harsher tone in voice]
[Long pause]
'Ok, thank you madam’ and then they hung up.
Ok, I’m not the easiest customer to engage with, however if you want me to be a customer you have to make an effort with the 'care factor' as well.
The second call went the same way, however at the start of the call, when I said ‘Fine’ when asked ‘How I was today’, the outbound caller said very quickly: ‘Don’t worry madam I'm not going to sell you anything today’.
Yeah right, what a crazy thing to say - not the best way to get me engaged in what you are going to say as we know that's incorrect.
When we got to the point of me saying I pay a flat rate so don’t know how much I spend on my tolls, the outbound caller then confirmed whether I was on contract and then said: ‘Oh well, I can’t do anything about that, so I’ll leave you where you are’. ‘Oh Gosh, how kind’, I though, it was all about their needs, not mine again.
I also believe the first call was made from overseas, due to the long pauses and the accent of the caller. This scares me again that we have offshore outsourced companies calling for a NZ company.
Kiwis don’t like outbound sales cold calling at the best of times and we have some companies out there that have terrible outbound scripting and who are NOT focusing on the customer needs at the start or during the call. I hope my next outbound sales experience is better but that won't be too hard to achieve as the bar hasn’t been set very high.