Call Waiting

Today a customer called me with a problem. Not a new problem but one due to their own issues and the weather still plagues them. A problem that I was probably more familiar with than he was. He proceeded to rehash the problem and the steps they've tried and the ones they've ignored. That was annoying enough but I was patient and let him go through the steps he needed to.

At 4 minutes and 23 seconds into the call I hear a phone ring in the background. He says it's his cell and he needs to grab it. Whatever. You called me buddy. He proceeded to take the call. I watched the time tick away on my phone which records the length of calls. Thirty seconds... forty five... a minute... a minute ten... patience... a minute thirty... patience evaporating... a minute forty five... ahhhrrrggg... my fingers on the release button... two minutes and he's still yapping... click! I'm out.

He calls back ten minutes later asking for me and I'm on the phone. He leaves his number. I'll call him tomorrow.

I was irritated. Not without good reason. First, he called me. Second, in the past three weeks this has happened to me five times. All five times it was somebody that called me and proceeded to take another call during ours. Not once in each of these five incidences did I have the opportunity to even tell the person to call me back when they are done. All five quickly said "I need to grab this" and then proceeded to take the other call.

What this shows me is a total lack of respect for me and my time. I'm all for customer service and giving the customer my best but I draw the line at disrespect. There was a day when I would have been mortified to hang up on a customer. I guess those days are gone.