Jun 11, 2010
It's not often that I see my husband speechless but this is one rare occasion I must share! He works most evenings at home on the phone and tries to get through the majority of his calls while I'm cooking dinner. Of course, this is the time when many telemarketers choose to strike so he gets to deal with most of them! Surveys, salespeople, charity donations, you name it, he gets them and not appreciating his work getting interrupted he is usually rather brief and to the point, 'Nope, I'm not interested'. However as he discovered the other day, some people really don't take no for an answer!
He took a call in the evening from a lady from HRV, wanting to sell us a home ventilation system. Noel said to her nicely that we weren't interested but she insisted on sending someone round to give a free demonstration and a no obligation quote. Noel said 'No, really, there's no point. We're moving house and are not willing to spend the money. If the new owners want an HRV, they can put their own in!' Before he could say another word, the woman at the other end of the phone said 'Right, he'll be there at 7.30 tomorrow night!' and promptly hung up!
Noel was gobsmacked. 'Did you hear that?! She hung up on me! You'd better give them a call in the morning, we don't want anyone turning up on our doorstep tomorrow night!' I didn't have a clue how to get in touch with her but I found the HRV website and dialled the number. I explained the situation to a lovely girl called Emma. 'I don't know if I've got the right number or who my husband spoke to but...' 'She wouldn't take no for an answer?' Emma chuckled, helpfully finishing my sentence. Straight away she brought up our name and address. 'Ah yes, here we are. Yep, she's booked you in for 7.30 alright! I'll just cancel that for you now.' Phew! I thanked her profusely and was relieved to have fixed the situation.
Or so I thought! At 7.30 on the dot that night there was a knock at the door. 'You've got to be kidding!' we groaned. There stood a smart looking, pleasant young man. It was pitch black, pouring with rain, he had driven an hour to see us and now would have to turn round and drive an hour back home again. 'Sorry mate, we did tell them we're not interested. We're moving, you can see the sign outside!' Understandably the poor chap didn't look very impressed so I jumped in with 'The lady hung up on us and we didn't want you to have a wasted journey so I rang Emma and spoke to her. She told me she would cancel it!' Thank goodness I remembered Emma's name! Straight away he realised that we had tried our best and didn't want to muck him around. 'Hmm, that's not like Emma not to tell me! Never mind, these things happen. I've just got one small problem! My car's oil light has just come on and there's nothing open for miles! You don't have any oil do you?' Noel wasn't sure but it was the least he felt he could do, so the two of them rummaged around in the tool shed, fervently hoping that the oil Noel kept for the lawnmower would do the trick. Fortunately it did and the chap was soon on his way again. 'Poor fella, he was a good bloke too!' Noel chuckled. We both felt really bad for him. Noel asked him while they were filling up the car if the lady got commission for making cold calls. 'Nope, only if I go on to make a sale as a result of her call' came the reply. 'So that's why she's so pushy, she hangs up before people can refuse and hopes that poor fella can go and change their minds in person!' said Noel. 'Honestly, the lengths some people will go to!' In her efforts to make a sale she wasted everybody's time, effort, petrol - even our lawnmower oil! Definitely another candidate for Salesperson of the Year - NOT!
