This morning, while pondering over a subject for today’s blog, a distraction came in the shape of a cold call kindly offering to ‘review my insurance policies’. When picking up the call I noticed its source location was a small provincial town in the UK.
I’ve never been to this town, although I’m sure its inhabitants are perfectly fragrant individuals. However, I was somewhat taken aback by the callers reaction when I informed him I wasn’t interested.
I’d firstly pointed out I believed he represented the same company as the one who contacted me yesterday evening. An assumption formed with the call originating from the same small town, peddling the identical services. An accusation that seemed to perturb the young bloke on t’other end.
During a fraught response, he assured me he represented a different company, in addition to claiming my logic reaching this judgement on was deeply flawed. He eloquently supported this opinion by politely informing me there are twenty different companies in the town.
He then opined what I’d said was like pre-judging all cold calls received from Manchester having the same source vendor, as his town and the north west England city were of similar size.
I didn’t argue the point at the time, but I was pretty convinced the simile wasn’t accurate, so when I got off the phone I checked online. Jeeves in his infinite wisdom backed up my theory, highlighting there is quite some difference in sizes between Manchester and this lad’s current domain.
Apparently the ‘like Manchester’ town has a population of 16,000 people, compared to the 514,000 in the Greater Manchester populous. Information I wish I’d had to hand mid-call.
A provincial town (below)
Now this young man may have been telling the truth and, despite being in the same provincial location as yesterdays call, represented a completely different company. However, Bert Wooster’s butler backed up my thoughts the simile used to denigrate my logic was well wide of the mark.
The young caller then felt the need to give me a patronising rundown containing various snippets of riveting information about his hometown. All very interesting stuff if I’d have wanted to visit there…….. It’s unlikely I will though!
For a guy trying to sell his ‘insurance review services’ to me, I was taken aback by his sales pitch. Inferring your prospective customer has poor geographical skills because their knowledge of your locale isn’t robust enough isn’t, I would have thought, likely to bear fruit sales wise.
Ordinarily, I’m more inclined to respond positively to people who conduct themselves politely after they’ve uninvitedly interrupted my schedule for the day. Additionally, being interested in what they are peddling helps, which wasn’t in this case.
Anyway, a few more “pleasantries” were exchanged before he hung up on me. I don’t know why but I felt aggrieved he’d beaten me to the cutting off. I felt it gave him a partial victory his rudeness hadn’t warranted.
Before I close, I wanted to say I don’t get any pleasure from having confrontations with cold callers. I have a degree of sympathy for their plight, after all attempting to enlist ‘ambulance chaser’ claims and victims of financial product mis-selling must be a soul destroying task.
I don’t imagine their role of undertaking the dirty work for their ‘masters’ is rewarding from either a job satisfaction or monetary perspective.
That being said, on this occasion I’d say this lad’s behaviour indicates sales are maybe not his best career path. Maybe, his vocation lies working as a guide with his local tourist board….. He certainly commands a wealth of knowledge about the area in which he resides.
Who knows, though, maybe I should have let him review my life insurance. After all, after our little tet a tet, he may seek retribution and be googling ‘hit men in Leeds area’ as I write!…….. I’ll take my chances, though!
