3 Choices

I have one more customer story today: Last Thursday, the same day I was going to the wrap party in Toronto after work, I had a client call 5 minutes before I had to go home. I'm not sure why I answered. I think sometimes I overestimate my ability so solve any problem in 2 minutes flat.

Yes, he was "concerned" (you're learning fast). He faxed an application to us 3 weeks ago and hadn't heard anything back. I looked everywhere on our systems and there was no sign of it. Sadly, I work in Mississauga and I know the fax number he used. It gets routed to B.C. for some reason. So I was looking on the computer and not actually looking through paper files.

I broke it to him that it wasn't showing for some reason and I asked if he wanted to fax it again or spend some time doing his application by phone. He didn't want to fax it again. He did that once already. He had his confirmation and he wanted to know where his fax went. Again I gave him 2 choices; I could connect him to the office where his fax was routed or I could get someone to take his application details over the phone.

He didn't seem to care or understand. He had his fax confirmation you see. And he wanted to know what happened to the fax. I offered to connect him and that was not good enough. He had spoken to seven people already (probably an exaggeration) and he wanted me to help him. Short of taking the next flight to Vancouver I didn't know what I could do. And I was starting to get pissed because I wanted to go to the party.

So I made it very clear to him that he had two choices (2). Either I connect him to someone who will take the application on the spot or I connect him to the office where his fax was sent. "What would you like me to do?" I asked. He wanted to bitch at me because what "we" did was stealing. Apparently we "stole" 3 weeks of his time and that was as bad as people robbing a bank. At that point I wanted to call him a loser for not getting on with his life and waiting for us to call. So I finally gave him a third choice. I repeated the fist two and told him that was all I could do and if he wouldn't let me help him I would be ending our call (more bank code for "you're wasting my fucking time bone head").

It worked. He took choice number two. I wanted to "accidentally" do number 3 but I was a good boy and I got him in touch with someone.