I'm sitting here finishing up a final project when the phone rings. The caller I.D. actually gives a number (724-554-5387 to be exact- call for a good time!) and it says "Washington," so I figure that it maybe someone important who needs to talk to us. I answer the phone and a gentleman asks for my mother. It's 2:30 in the afternoon so she is still at work and I inform him of this. He then explains that he is with AT&T Wireless. Being that she and I have a shared plan, and that AT&T Wireless handles both of our phones and accounts, I think this is message may be relevant to me as well, so I ask him if something is wrong. He then begins to explain the holiday promotion and stops to ask if I reaaaaaaally am Marcia. So, he basically called me a liar. "No," I respond, "this is her daughter, but..." (I wanted to explain that we have the shared account but he cut me off). He continues on with his uberpersuasive banter. "If you get an additional cell phone and phone line, the line and additional phone won't cost you anything...." Blah, I want to get back to my studies and this promotion isn't relevant to us anyway, so I tell him, "Well, there's just the two of us, so we really don't need an additional phone...." He cuts me off, "Well, that's not very nice!" NOT VERY NICE!!! What kind of telemarketer are you!? I know, A REALLY CRAPPY ONE. Rule one of telemarketing: don't tell the customers that they aren't nice. He then gets melodramatic and apologizes for "wasting my time." Granted, he was wasting my time, but telemarketers aren't supposed to admit that! Furthermore, I know that he was just doing his job, so I wasn't really upset that he called, but he should have apologized for saying that I wasn't nice. I don't think that's part of the telemarketer job description. Or is it!?! Maybe it's like this:
MISSION STATEMENT: To provide information about AT&T Wireless promotions in a fast and friendly manner and to tell customers they aren't nice if they are not interested in some lame-ass promotion.
