Saturday 29 December 2012

Bl***y Telecom

So BT, our telephonic equipment provider, called yesterday and the conversation went something like this:
Me: Hello?
(Silence, and then a gentle hum; distant voices akin to the sound of a call centre).
Me: Hello?
Gavin: Hi there! Is that Mrs Hunt?
Me: Yes, it is.
Gavin: Hiya Mrs Hunt! How are you?
Me: Fine, thank you.
Gavin: That's great, Mrs Hunt. My name is Gavin, and I am calling from B.T.
Me: Yes.

(I have to point out at this stage that I did not know he was called Gavin before he said he was called Gavin; I have merely decided to call him Gavin from the offset because it is quicker and easier to type than 'operator.' Or 'pain in the backside cold caller'.)

Gavin: So Mrs Hunt...can I call you Denise?
Me: No.
Gavin: Okay, that's great. So Mrs Hunt, I'm calling today from B.T to tell you that we've had lots of engineers in your area today in response to a lot of calls from other B.T customers in your area today about our service.

(At this point I thought Gavin was going to tell me that the calls from other B.T customers in the area were appertaining to the problem we had with our landline on Christmas Day which meant every time we tried to make an outward call, we got put through to a B.T Business Centre, which was closed, it being Christmas Day and all, and that he, Gavin, was calling to apologise and offer us some sort of recompense, preferably financial. And he was right, the exchange box that is situated over the road and down a bit from where we live had been swarming with BT engineers all day. But no, naive Mrs Hunt. I thought wrongly. And thusly continued the conversation.)

Gavin: So, Mrs Hunt, I am calling to tell you that our engineers have been busy updating your Internet Broadband speed in line with, and beyond that of other Internet Broadband providers in your area. Can I ask who you have your Internet Broadband with please?
Me: We are quite happy with our Internet provider, thank you.
Gavin: BT Internet broadband is faster, bigger and more efficient than all other providers in your area.

(And then he tried to impress me with some figures about mega-kilo-jigga-speed-of-download-bytes-per-second malarkey - well, you know how men are. Either way, I glazed over when he started with the Maths because what he was saying sounded like 'burbleburbleburbleblah.')

Me: I need to tell you again that we are happy with our current provider and we have no intention of changing to BT...
Gavin: So you are turning down the chance to have the ultimate and best download speed in your area, Mrs Hunt? Is that correct, Mrs Hunt? Can you tell me, Mrs Hunt, what the download speed of your current provider is?

(Well, I don't know that kind of information, do I? I mean, I'm a girl. I don't care. That's men's stuff, that is. Makes me yawn. YAWNNNNNN. See. But I wasn't going to let Gavin know that I didn't know, so I remained ruggedly determined by saying...)

Me: We are happy with our current provider. We shall not be changing.
Gavin: That's great, Mrs Hunt, but I really don't understand why you are passing up the opportunity to change to BT super-infinity faster than the speed of Daisy with the wind behind her.

(He didn't really say that. I did. For comic effect).

Me: We are happy with our current provider.
Gavin: Mrs Hunt, how can you be happy with a provider that gives you less download speed than BT? It's burbleburbleburbleblah.....

(There he goes again...YAWNNNNN!)

Me: We just are. We aren't going to change.
Gavin: What could I say to impress you, Mrs Hunt? To make you change your mind?
Me: I am already impressed by your dogged persistence in trying to make a sale.
Gavin: But what is it that makes you so happy with your current provider that you want to stay with them, Mrs Hunt?
Me: What makes us happy about anything, Gavin?

(And at this point I could swear I heard him trying to suppress a laugh.)

Gavin: That's great, Mrs Hunt. You have a good day now.
Me: You, too. Byeeeeeee!!

And thus yesterday I learned two things: firstly, that I may have lost the Internet broadband speed offer of the century, but I won the battle against the persistent sales geek and secondly, that my name is Mrs Hunt.

And that's great!


3 comments:

  1. I'm so impressed you got him to hang up first! You have skill. Gavin sounds like quite a character: "Can I call you Denise?" Really? I hate when telemarketers start talking to me like we're friends.

    That "what makes any of us happy" line made me laugh like crazy. Genius.

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  2. Great that you knocked him down, Denise. My get out ploy for such calls, of which we used to get quite a few each day when we lived in the UK, was either to speak in foreign-English, as in 'plleeez, ay no speekkee de eeengleesh', which was quite fun, or I would put the phone down as soon as I heard the lag - normally there was a second or two after the call was taken when the open line was put through to a telemarketer so they could start their spiel. In that precious moment of time, down went my phone.
    We don't get such calls here. As soon as they know we are English, they put the phone down on us!

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  3. Thanks, Azara! I'm not quite sure where the comeback line came from, but it was good to think of it immediately, because you usually think of them a couple of hours after the event.

    Vera, I like the 'confused foreigner' idea! I do feel a bit sorry for these telesales people because they are only trying to do a job and they must feel really stupid having to follow some truly awful scripts. Therefore, I try to throw them 'off script' and sometimes, just sometimes, you can actually reach the person behind the company robot. And I think I made him laugh.

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