The Unfamiliar Phone Call
by Evan Shultz
I was writing another blog, when I got a phone call from an unfamiliar number.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Hi…I hope I didn’t get you at a bad time?”
Who was it? One of my coworkers? Someone from church?
“No, you didn’t get me at a bad time,” I said.
“Oh…oh, good. I was just calling because I noticed you’re a customer of Acme* Ford…”
Uh-oh. Here it comes.
“…and I just wanted to tell you about our new service center. If you have any problems with your car, you can call us. Do you have a pen ready?”
No, I didn’t. But I did have a computer ready, I told him. I even took down the number in a Notepad file.
I just didn’t save it.
“Also, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Sure,” I said.
I try to answer the survey questions if I have time, for the same reason I try to vote. Think about it: When a company surveys its customer base by phone, the only demographic that shows up is the likes-answering-phone-surveys demographic. Is that what you want corporate America to see when they look at you? I’m just trying to skew the data back towards our little corner of normalcy. No need to thank me.
“Okay, first, how many cars do you have in your household?”
Now that’s a loaded question. It assumes I have a household. I don’t. What I have are three roommates who form the nexus of an extended village. After explaining this, I settled on three cars in our household, provided you limited ‘household’ to my roommates and I. Although even this answer assumed a very particular definition of ‘car.’
“I, um, see…and would any of you be likely to purchase a new car in the near future?”
“Probably not,” I said. “Most of us are on a low income…in fact, I only have a new car because it was a Christmas gift.”
It also was not purchased at Acme* Ford. It was purchased about eighty miles away at Ajax* Ford. I only go to Acme* Ford to get it serviced periodically so as not to forfeit the manufacturer’s warranty. I did not feel the need to mention this, however.
“Oh, okay, well…could you do me a favor?”
“Sure,” I said. What could it cost me?
“Here at Acme* Ford, we pride ourselves that our highest source of new customers is recommendation and word of mouth.”
Uh-oh.
“Can you think of anyone—a friend, a relative, a co-worker, anyone—who might be looking to purchase a new car, whom you could recommend us to?”
“I’m afraid I can’t think of anyone I know who would be purchasing a new car anytime this decade,” I was forced to admit, “although I can definitely recommend your maintenance service!”
“Oh. Well, that’s too bad. Thank you for your time, sir. You have a nice day.”
—Click—
I felt bad for the guy. His job was to make sure I was as happy as his employer could make me. He wasn’t trying to hustle me, he wasn’t even trying to sell me. But when you work for a company, you want to believe that it’s a good company, that you are somehow indirectly helping the customers and not just the stockholders. And in a perfect world, shouldn’t a good company like that get its business through customer recommendation? Certainly couldn’t hurt to remind the customers to recommend you, then, could it? But you still wonder, as one by one you ask your customers to sing your master’s praises, why you feel so sheepish even picking up the phone.
*Obviously, Acme and Ajax are not the real names.
