You want information about some service and you want it fast. So the logical thing to do is pick up the phone call them. You dial their info desk number. It rings and rings, and rings. It’s only natural to give the people over there the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the person handling the info phone as gone to another office on some errand and will return shortly. Or the boss is pissed up over something and is giving them some dressing down in his office. You wait fifteen or so at the least not to put any pressure on them. Maybe they’re nice guys, who knows! And in times when good guys are becoming as rare as the Walyas you have to hold on to every good guy you come across. You dial again and still no one picks the phone. Again there might be no person physically near pick the phone to pick it up. Or maybe there is someone near the phone and for some reason (don’t ask me what) they don’t want to pick it up. You think that doesn’t happen? It does, and far more often than you’d think. The inefficiency and the negligence in some places is horrendous. It seems some spell has been cast on the entire places to keep the staff lazy as lazy could come and the enterprise unproductive. You wonder why they post their info desk numbers if they aren’t going to answering the calls. In some places they herald their info desk is active almost at all hours and still you, the customer, couldn’t get through to them at any hour! We’re talking only about enterprises who have names too big for their shoulders to bear but also about some supposedly heavy weights too.
So if your info desk call is picked up consider yourself lucky even for only that! Then comes the real story. Now our understanding is anyone managing the info desk should be well versed with the ins and outs of the organization and able to respond to all relevant questions without much trouble. This world would have been a little better place than it’s now had that fact been a reality. These days you must be among the people who go frequent calls form real estate agents. They are so frequent and so repetitive every time you hear, “I’m calling form so and so real sate…” you almost throw up your arms with “Oh not again!”
A measured and musical female voice tells you that their real estate agency has come with a lot of enticing incentive to respective buyers. She tells you theirs is of a different kind and was doing what others aren’t. Somehow almost every real estate agent who talks to you uses this line of trying to lure prospective buyers. In fact maybe without them being fully aware of it the wordings are so similar and cut-and-paste type ‘boring’ is a very feeble word to describe them.
Then you ask the lady trying to break down your defenses, “Can you tell me the incentives you people would offer me if I decide to buy?” Hold your breath!
“For that you have to come to our offices and talk what the management.” What! What the hell does that mean? Isn’t she supposed to know at least these very basic facts! This is not about technical issues like how the entire design goes and what sort of building materials they use and the like.
“I’m too busy to come to your offices. Why don’t you yourself tell me…”
“But sir the mangers would like to talk to you…” She didn’t talk to you more than five minute and she makes it sound you’ve already given in. But it is not difficult to suspect that she hasn’t been oriented enough with what she should have been oriented with.
Somehow many phones of info desks are never picked. Sometime if you’re the sort of person trying to personalize everything that happens you might even go as far as suspecting, “Are they avoiding me deliberately?” How the hell can hey avoid you deliberately without them knowing who’s calling. I raise this because a high level secretary I know found herself at the receiving end of the wrath of such a person. This man calls and she tells him her boss wasn’t available and she wasn’t make up stories. He indeed was in fact in North America. The man at first tried to soften her heart claiming he had a very important issue to raise with her boss. He then goes into aggressive mode and threw a few unpleasant words at her. Mind you, she has no idea who he was and it was the first time to call for him with her at the secretary’s desk.
A few days back her boss returns. One day a fellow barges into the office and demands to be let into the boss’s office. She asks him to sit down while she makes sure if t her boss was ready to accept visitors. He says, “You refused to put me through to him on the phone and now you’re trying to prevent him from going into his office!” With that he barges in. She immediately picks up the phone and tells her boss she didn’t let in the man. A couple of minutes later her boss comes out with the ‘timid looking guest’ following. He asks her about the phone call and she tells him what happened. He turns to the man and warns him “If I ever see you in the vicinity of our offices I’ll report you to the police!” that did it.
So, don’t be surprised if the persons who picked up the info desk phone knows too little about what they are expected to know. You ask the most basic question and you can imagine them being left wordless at the other end. There are many who don’t fully believe most of the phone numbers which appear after the engaging promise “For all your inquiries call us on…. We’re available 24/7.” Hmmm….
BY EPHREM ENDALE CONTRIBUTOR
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 5 MAY 2024