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.”

Last year, when my auto policy renewed, the overall number looked the same, but for some reason, the monthly payments were doubled. I thought that was weird and looked at the details of the policy, and I realized that the overall number was only for six months, not a year. I looked into my online account and found that they had added my older daughter, who lives several states away.

I couldn’t change anything online without proof that she didn’t live with me, so I called customer service and finally got an agent.

I explained that my daughter was an adult child living in a completely different area, and I didn’t ask for her to be added to the account. The guy was able to pull her off easily enough. When I pushed about how she got added in the first place, he muttered an explanation of how the underwriters could add on anyone they thought was in the house and a driver of the cars without authorization needed.

They didn’t try it again at the next renewal, but the fact that they tried to hide it by doing a six-month policy instead of one year so the numbers evened out made me think they knew darn well it wasn’t on the up and up. I stayed with them since the cost for auto and house is still much lower than everywhere else quoted, but I make sure to review all the papers.

My first full-time job was working for an insurance call centre. The company had its own insurance products, but it also managed calls for quotes and medical questionnaires on behalf of other companies as well.

We were not allowed to let customers know that we managed quotes for other companies. If the customer wanted a quote for a different company, even if it was one we took calls for, the customer needed to hang up and call that number.

One day, I took a call from a man looking for a travel insurance policy. He was friendly, and the call went as normal. I gave him several quotes. He told me he wanted to shop around a bit more before making a decision, so I saved the quote for him and ended the call.

A few minutes later, a call came through. It was the same man but calling for one of the other companies. I gave my usual greeting.

Caller: “Wow, you sound a lot like the young lady I was just talking to a second ago.”

Me: *Trying to keep my cool* “Oh, really?”

Caller: “Yeah, I just got off the phone with [Company #1].”

Me: “Oh, well, you’ve come through to [Company #2].”

We carried on with the quote. I detailed the products and their coverage. As we were wrapping up the call, the man said:

Caller: “Wow, are you sure you don’t have a sister or something working for [Company #1]?”

Me: “Not as far as I’m aware.”

Caller: “You two sound so alike. You even have the same peculiar accent.”

Because I moved around a lot growing up, I have a weird combination accent that includes a mix of Essex, Hampshire, and Norfolk, as well as a slight American twang as I lived in the States for some years as well (North Carolina and South Carolina for anyone interested).

Caller: *Chuckling* “Maybe you have a long-lost sister.”

It was super awkward as the man joked and speculated about some long-lost relative working for another insurance company. All the while, I couldn’t let on that he had called the same call centre, or I would be disciplined or even potentially fired. Finally, the call was over. Just as before, the man said he wanted to get more quotes before he decided.

I ended the call, praying that he didn’t come through to me a third time. Thankfully, he didn’t. But it quickly became a joke amongst my colleagues that I had a long-lost sister hiding somewhere in the office.

My wife and I are on “over-sixty-five” supplemental health insurance. She has a different provider than I do. I have power of attorney for her as she no longer communicates. I took her to a clinic for an appointment, and as we were checking out, we discovered that their records showed she had no supplemental insurance in force. I called the company and was told that she had canceled her supplemental coverage — that it had been canceled eight months prior.

Customer Service: “She called and canceled it.”

Me: “Do you have a recording of the call?”

Customer Service: “We record all of our calls.”

Me: “I would be curious to hear her cancel the insurance because she had a brain tumor removed seven years ago and has been non-communicative for the past two years.”

Customer Service: “What are you saying?”

Me: “That your company fouled up and canceled the wrong person — if, in fact, someone called to cancel their policy.”

Customer Service: “Your bank stopped the auto debit to make the monthly payments.”

Me: “I already checked that out with my bank. Nope. You stopped sending the statements for payment. This is on you.”

Customer Service: “I will transfer you to my supervisor.”

The supervisor came on the line and gave me instructions to call a specific number and speak with one of their agents. It turned out that that agent wanted to start a new policy. I hung up, called the company back, and spoke to the supervisor.

Me: “If I started the new policy, there would be riders for pre-existings, right?”

Supervisor: “That is correct.”

Me: “The way I see this, you canceled the wrong person eight months ago and are trying to cover this up.”

Supervisor: “Let me call you back in an hour.”

He called back two hours later.

Supervisor: “Here’s what I can do. I can reinstate the policy as of this date with no riders. Or, I can back-date the policy to the date of cancelation so that any payments you made, thinking it was your copay, will be reimbursed. If I do that, you will have to pay all the premiums that would have been billed for those months. Which would you like?”

Because he did not balk and try to dump this back on us, I assumed he had discovered that they had made a huge mistake because he came back very quickly with a reinstatement solution, even to back-date this. He never admitted that they had made a mistake verbally, but by the options he gave me, he did.

I took the option to back-date it and paid up.

In case you are wondering why I never caught it in the bank statement, we have online banking, and all I would do with her account was look at the balance to make sure there were funds to pay auto-debits. We operated out of my account for daily activities, so I didn’t see that payments were not being made.

My phone rings, and it’s a telemarketer. She asks if she can tell me about the insurance she’s selling. I tell her that it’s a waste of her time because I am a student and can barely pay my rent. She very politely asks if she can tell me about the offer shortly, anyway. That’s when I have a tiny lightbulb moment.

Me: “Excuse me. Tell me if I can’t ask this, but do you only get a commission, or do you get an hourly wage, too?”

She’s silent for a few seconds, and then she carefully replies, and I definitely can hear a smile in her voice.

Caller: “No commission, which is fine with me, but I’d love to tell you about the offer.”

I told her to go for it and take however long she liked because I wasn’t in a hurry, so she talked for quite a while I randomly said things like, “Oh, I see,” and, “Ah, interesting,” while doing schoolwork.

At the end of the call, she thanked me for listening, said she’d take me off their call list (that’s never happened before; usually, they just call again!), and wished me a nice day.

It was a tiny thing, but both of us left the interaction happy.

She was telling the truth; they never called me again.