I worked in an insurance company call centre to help pay my way through university about ten years ago, and although I was part-time, I was recognised for having a good rapport and became a bit of an example of how to interact with customers due to being considered a bit of a chameleon.
I could be speaking with the financial director of an oil and gas company with an enormous liability risk and have the same effective rapport with them as I might with a farmer wanting the minimum cover possible for a forty-year-old truck that wouldn’t leave their farm, who was haggling and having a laugh with me.
Calls were monitored for training and compliance on a regular basis, so my calls were picked up by the compliance team for being of high quality. They asked if I would mind if they picked a few of my calls to demonstrate to new staff the different ways that I would mirror each customer’s expressions and portray a likeness to gain trust, making the calls easier, making the customers more relaxed about answering questions, and ultimately making it less of a sale and more of a consultation.
I agreed, and the compliance team went to work, selected quite a few calls, and then arranged for us to all sit in a room to listen to them.
They found quite a few examples of objection handling, calming irate customers, upselling, and professional yet friendly rapport. These were all their words. (And despite how I have described myself so far, I didn’t realise that this was a marketable skill or anything at that point; I was just being me and trying to do a good job, so I found it really embarrassing to listen to.)
They put together all of the audio clips and presented them to the training team to assess. They liked the examples, they put them to the test, and the feedback was great.
They then asked if I would mind doing a live call with a customer for the new staff to listen in on and see how I reacted off-the-cuff. Again, I agreed, and we arranged to have the audio of the call played in the training room, along with a mirror of my screen so that they could see what I was doing. (This is slightly important as it changed the process.)
My first call came in. It was a plumber looking to change his van on his policy. Simple. I made a few jokes, made sure everything was accurate, and got all of the legal and regulatory jargon completed. Happy customer.
The next call was from an estate owner who was looking to renew her estate insurance. It was a very serious call, strictly professional, and with very little rapport as she was giving one-word responses and everything was “taking too long”. It was a good example of when to just do exactly what the customer was looking for and no more. However, with a room full of new staff and her bank account likely having a few zeros before the decimal, I opted to use our secure telephone payment system rather than have her read out the card details to me over the phone and be heard in the other room whilst also being recorded on the call.
Me: “Okay, that will be [total]. And if you have your card there just now, I will talk you through our secure telephone payment system.”
Customer: “Yes, I do, as long as it doesn’t take long.”
Me: “No, no, if done correctly, your payment will be made and your policy will be renewed in the next thirty seconds. I am now going to start the telephone payment process. When I tell you to, type in the long card number on your phone, followed by the pound key; that will then populate my screen with your card details censored out.”
Customer: “Okay, bear with me.” *Pauses* “Done.”
Me: “I don’t think that has worked. Can you try that again?”
Customer: “I thought you said this would be quick. Okay, doing it now.”
Me: “Oh, I don’t think that has worked again. Can I just confirm that you are pressing the pound key?”
Customer: “Yes, I am hitting the bloody pound key. I don’t have time for this terrible system. If it doesn’t work this time, I won’t be doing it a fourth.”
Me: “I’m really sorry about this, I am not sure what is going wrong. But if it doesn’t work this time, I can arrange to call you at a better time to take the payme—”
Customer: *Interrupting* “Done.”
Me: “I’m sorry, it hasn’t worked this time, either.”
Customer: “Oh, for God’s sake. This is absolutely ridiculous. All I want to do is renew my policy. It really shouldn’t be this difficult. We decided to stay with you because it is a good policy, but there is obviously a reason why you are working in a call centre if you can’t take a bloody payment.”
Me: “I’m really sorry about the trouble here. I don’t understand what is going wrong, as everything looks correct on our side. There may be an issue with your phone connecting to our system. Could we possibly try your landline?”
Customer: “I am on my landline. Do you think because my mobile doesn’t have great signal, that is the issue?”
Me: “Sorry, what do you mean? Are you on your landline or mobile?”
Customer: “What don’t you understand? I am speaking to you on the landline.”
Me: “Okay, but you asked if your mobile not having signal could be the issue?”
Customer: “Yes, I am speaking with you on my landline. My mobile phone isn’t doing anything when I press pound.”
Me: *Blurting out* “Sorry, just to check, are you speaking to me on your landline and putting your card number into your mobile phone?”
Customer: *Condescendingly* “Yes! Now we are getting somewhere.”
Me: *Trying not to laugh* “I am… Ahem… I think I have… Ahem… Found the issue. You see… Ahem… You need to type your card number into the phone connected to the call — not just a random phone.”
Customer: “It’s not just a random phone; it’s my phone… Oh.”
Me: *Getting the giggles properly this time* “I am so sorry. I don’t know why I am laughing. You just caught me off guard with that one.”
She burst out laughing, too.
Customer: “Oh, my God, I am such an idiot.”
The two of us laughed uncontrollably for about a minute. I finally moved us along, tears running down my face.
Me: “Sorry, I know you were in a rush. Shall we try this again?”
In proper hysterics and not able to speak, the customer started typing in her card number properly this time.
Customer: “Done. Hopefully, that works.”
The two of us kept ohhing and ahhing from the aches of laughing so much.
Me: “Right. Now I just need you to put in the three-digit security code from your card and push pound again.”
There was silence, and then we both hit hysterics again.
There were then another five minutes of on-and-off giggling before she finally thanked me for my patience and for giving her a much-needed laugh.
I came off the phone sweating and aching with pains in my cheeks and ribs, walked into the training room, and got a standing ovation. Apparently, every single person in there was in hysterics with us the entire time.
I heard recently that the call is still used sometimes and is named “[My Name] Thawing The Ice Queen Live.”
