In any business, you probably need to use the phone a lot. It is very boring and annoying talking to most customer service reps. Sometimes it is good to inject a little humor, at least with US clients. In India, humor might be taken as “unprofessional” or not understood as many people in India just don’t understand the concept of humor — at least not MY humor which involves play on words. Obviously, judge your audience to see if they like particular jokes or not.
I call many people daily for my Notary directory. Calls tend to be very dry and dull. I found a few ways to spice things up.
BEFORE: Hi, this is Jeremy from 123notary, we created a new listing for you and want to make sure the information is correct.
AFTER: Hi, this is Jeremy from 123notary. We created a new listing for you and are calling to verify that you are a real person.
Americans find this really funny. On the internet there are many profiles created by people misrepresenting themselves as someone else or by robots. I get a laugh almost every time from this type of verbiage.
BEFORE:
ME: How many loans have you signed in your career?
CUSTOMER: Oh Gosh, I don’t know.
ME: My form has room for numbers, not paragraphs.
AFTER:
ME: How many loans have you signed?
CUSTOMER: I have no idea.
ME: Well, I need a number to put in the box. A million?
CUSTOMER: Oh, no, not that many.
ME: Half a million?
The ridiculous over-estimate is funny to the clients.
BEFORE:
ME: Do you have a dual tray laser printer?
CUSTOMER: What are the trays for? I only have one tray.
ME: One for legal sized paper and another for letter sized paper.
AFTER:
ME: Do you have a single or dual tray laser printer.
CUSTOMER: Single
ME: Single and ready to mingle.
CUSTOMER: Actually, I have a dual tray at work.
ME: Dual and ready to duel. One tray for legal sized paper and the other tray for ILLEGAL sized paper!
CUSTOMER: Yeah, or perhaps for illegal sized Mortgage Brokers. I know a few!
Perhaps in your business you have some routine calls that you could spice up with humor. These days, life is so dull and unpleasant that a fun person to talk to about boring things with some humor interjected might be the perfect medicine!