Business

How to antagonize the customer you’ve already antagonized

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My job involves bothering people busy at work and trying to sell to them. I get hung up on a lot, and who can blame them? I don’t care about my job and I’m disrupting them from the job they do care about.

 

I anger over 20 customers a day to prevent my Manager’s anger. Can my Manager’s wrath be over 20 times worse than these irate customers? He would have to be somewhere between The Incredible Hulk and Hitler. He thankfully isn’t, but does have the power to render me unemployed, adding another blemish to an already chequered CV.

 

I counter each customer’s abruptness with a polite enthusiasm bordering on the sarcastic, culminating in “bye bye, take care Janice”. My customer is not called Janice. I merely use that name so she thinks I misremembered or guessed her name. Play with the names to cause maximum offence. Call an upper-class gentleman “Bruce” or “Wayne” a woman in early middle-age should be called “Ethel” or “Blanche”. She won’t like this.

 

When hung up on immediately call back and cheerfully say “I think we got cut off” before launching back into your spiel which caused them to hang up initially. This will make them so angry you’ll start to laugh, which will only add to their rage. If you have to anger people for a living, at least do a proper job of it. This release will preserve your sanity and may prevent you from impaling your Manager with a biro thrust that could take down a wild boar.  

When a rude customer is about to end the conversation stop them with a Columbo-esque “Oh, one more thing”. They will ask what this is. Go silent. They will angrily repeat this question. Stay silent. This really makes them angry. Just before they hang up jab the # button on your phone and hang up on them. The hash button makes the most piercing sound since Bjork’s last orgasm. Try for yourself, the hash button, not giving Bjork an orgasm. I hear she’s hard to please.

 

If this call gets monitored diffuse the situation with fake sincerity and admit to making a “hash of the call”. Mocking your Manager like this will add to your wave of euphoria as you return to your desk ready to antagonize another customer.

 

Next Monday: How to make a disastrous impression on your new Manager.  

Written by Martin Stocks

Follow Martin on twitter at https://twitter.com/Stocks1986