I got a sales call at work today from Chase Manhattan, pushing a Southwest Airlines Visa card, because apparently the fact that I’ve ignored their almost weekly solicitations by mail led them to believe that I was just waiting for them to call me.
Sales calls at work are annoying, and of course I told the guy who called to put me on their no-call list forthwith…but that’s not the story. The story is that the guy, who had a very heavy Indian accent—when he went into the disclaimer spiel about their no-call procedure, I couldn’t understand everything he was saying, and I’m good with accents—and was almost certainly calling from India, began the call by saying, “My name is Jack Anderson.”
Um…no. No, it isn’t.
Seriously, what is the purpose of having offshore telemarketers use “all-American” names? Am I supposed to like the guy better because he doesn’t have some skeery furrin name, and therefore sign right up for the credit card that he’s shilling? Do they think that by having these employees use familiar-sounding names, they’ll get customers to overlook the heavy accents and incomplete grasp of English and think, “Oh, that Chase Manhattan is such a great company, they don’t outsource their entry-level jobs to India”?
The thing is, I wouldn’t have even noticed the name if he’d used his real one; telemarketers usually give their names, and I ignore them just like I ignore the rest of the spiel. Instead, I ended up thinking how creepy and really quite offensive it was that Chase won’t let its offshore employees use their own names. I truly cannot imagine what they were thinking when they came up with this policy.
Unless the explanation is simply that they’re idiots. That, I’ll buy.
I get the impression that those phone reps aren’t supposed to talk about India, either. Once I started asking a guy where he was calling from (Bombay, he reluctantly said) and what his first language was (Gujarati), and he seemed to get very nervous and wanted to change the subject. Which is a pity, because I’d much rather talk about India than hear the spiel he was supposed to be giving me.
So is it supposed to be some big secret that call center jobs are outsourced to India? ‘Cause if it is, the secrecy thing ain’t working.
A person could probably blog non-stop with examples of ever-creepier corporate practices. And it’s funny — in a way your story isn’t even really worth an eye-bat. But on the other hand, it’s symptomatic of everything that’s depressing and spiritually crippling about the world we live in today.
It’s worth noting that most call center employees who aren’t in India still don’t use their real names. If some white guy with a perfect mid-western accent was calling from Peoria and told you his name was Jack Anderson, it’s at least as likely that it was Rajeev Gupta than that it was actually Jack Anderson.
True, Jacquilynne, and that’s a slightly less bizarre practice, I guess—if I were a call center employee, I don’t think I’d want anyone to know my real name either.
Which sort of raises the question of why these people use their names at all. It’s not like it matters; having a name, real or fake, to attach to the voice, doesn’t make sales calls any less annoying. But that’s a whole nother story, I guess.
Because for the people on whom telemarketing actually works, the name is a personal connection that helps make the sale. It seems stupid to you – but you’re smart enough not to buy things from people who call you on the phone. The slightly lonely and slightly befuddled people that these calls actually work on, though, appreciate getting to know Jack.
Even on inbound calls like customer service you usually get names. It helps make things more personable and gives the customer some way to identify the person if the call goes sour.