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Your Funniest or Most Embarrassing Sales Call Experience
Sales trainer Art Sobczak is looking for your funniest or most embarrassing sales call experience, and is offering a chance to win a $300 phone headset system.
Here's the link for entering: http://www.telesalesblog.com/2010/07/30/what-is-your-funniest-or-mo...
But I'm posting this link with a request: if you enter your story on Art's blog, will you also share it with us here?
Here's the embarrassing phone story I submitted:
A large part of my job is making sales and customer service calls to radio stations across the U.S. and Canada. Several years ago, I was calling on some stations in Quebec, and it soon became apparent that it was common practice for receptionists to answer the phone in French rather than English. My standard reply to their greeting became, “I don’t speak French. Could you please speak English?” and usually they’d switch languages with no problem. But then came the day when, a bit trigger-happy, and not exactly sure of what the receptionist had just said, I repeated my cheerful request, “Can you please speak English?” … only to be met with a long pause, and a constrained voice saying, “I WAS speaking English.” Oops! Turned out that the secretary had simply answered the phone by giving the radio station’s nickname, and I had totally missed it. Needless to say, I was quite embarrassed, but thankfully the lady was quite understanding, and we moved on with the call. It has made for a good story to laugh about in subsequent years — and it taught me an important lesson about listening carefully before I speak!
Here's the link for entering: http://www.telesalesblog.com/2010/07/30/what-is-your-funniest-or-mo...
But I'm posting this link with a request: if you enter your story on Art's blog, will you also share it with us here?
Here's the embarrassing phone story I submitted:
A large part of my job is making sales and customer service calls to radio stations across the U.S. and Canada. Several years ago, I was calling on some stations in Quebec, and it soon became apparent that it was common practice for receptionists to answer the phone in French rather than English. My standard reply to their greeting became, “I don’t speak French. Could you please speak English?” and usually they’d switch languages with no problem. But then came the day when, a bit trigger-happy, and not exactly sure of what the receptionist had just said, I repeated my cheerful request, “Can you please speak English?” … only to be met with a long pause, and a constrained voice saying, “I WAS speaking English.” Oops! Turned out that the secretary had simply answered the phone by giving the radio station’s nickname, and I had totally missed it. Needless to say, I was quite embarrassed, but thankfully the lady was quite understanding, and we moved on with the call. It has made for a good story to laugh about in subsequent years — and it taught me an important lesson about listening carefully before I speak!
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