Mr. John Fuckhead

Hi Everyone! I’m on mobile so please forgive any formatting issues.

So I get an agent call though from another department with a customer who would like to add a feature to their plan. No problem so the agent sends the customer through I go through verification and we discuss which feature he would like to add.

As a side note I almost always refer to customers using their first name. (Unless I genuinely can’t pronounce it. In that case I’ll always ask how said name is pronounced and if there was any way in particular the customer would like me to refer to them as. Sir, madam etc?)

I find calling people by their first name generally shows a friendly inviting attitude.

So customer’s name is John. I’ve referred to him as John for about 5/6 minutes in to the call when he comes out with this beauty… JF will be John Fuckhead and I will be me.

JF: My name is John.

Me: Ah, yes of course…

JF: My. Naaaaamme. Is. JOHN

Me: Excellent John so if you would just like to select the feat-

JF: MYYYY NAAAAAMME IIIISS JOOOOOOHN. ONLY MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY MAY REFER TO ME AS JOHN! YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND AND WE ARE CERTAINLY NOT RELATED!

Me: Ok that’s no problem at all, would you prefer I call you Sir or Mr. Fuckhead?

JF: SIR, obviously.

So I called him Sir for the rest of the call like the lowly dog he thinks I am.

Sigh, I love most of the customers I speak to. I’ve had customers come through to me screaming and by the end of the call we’re laughing like old friends. I pride myself on my friendliness and dedication to helping my customers but it’s a call like this that really brings me down. Surely it’s pointless to be that rude to a stranger who is simply trying to be nice.

Added bonus, the overall manager of the building had been sitting right beside me to live listen in on my calls for like an hour or so and this was the last call of mine he was there for. He took off his headset and said ‘You handled that well. It wasn’t a bad call, just a bad person so don’t worry about it.’ Luckily all the calls he heard before that were very easy-going and fun conversations so phew!