Knowing Your Customer (And The Consequences of Not Doing So)

For those of you who don't know, it was my Birthday on Friday. No big deal really, as I celebrated the weekend before, but the story I'm about to tell you really needs some context in order for me to not look like a prick!

Picture this: It's a Friday, it's your birthday. You have just worked a full day (even though you had planned on ducking out a bit early :D) and you are sitting at home getting ready for a great night to yourself. Normally on your birthday you want to be around other people, but you have to leave at 5am on Sunday morning to catch a plane for a business trip, so you've decided to take it easy and have a night off.

Now imagine that as you are talking to your girlfriend via text message and chatting with some friends online, you receive a phone call from an unknown number At first you ignore it because you don't know the number, but who knows, the three beers you already have in you convince you that phone call could be your next ticket to stardom. You'll never know if you don't answer! Well, this is where the fun begins....

This nice young gentleman was on the other end of the line from "Scotialife", which I'm assuming is some subsidiary of Scotiabank, although that comes into question later. This young man skipped right past the small talk and began what I considered to be a fairly hard sell on some life insurance products. He talked about how awful it would be if I passed and left nothing to my loved ones, touted the features of the great products he had to offer, and after what seemed like 3-5 minutes of his continuous talking, he asked "Would you like to enroll in this program Mr. Tyhurst?" (or something to that effect).

Before i describe my response, I want to give this guy kudos. Telemarketing is a thankless job, but someone has got to do it. He was polite, relatively enthusiastic, and definitely knew some great responses to my objections. Unfortunately for him, I don't think he was equipped with the tools necessary in order to satisfy my needs. That being said, here's how it went (paraphrased from memory):

Me: No thank you, I am not interested.


Telemarketer: I completely understand Mr. Tyhurst, may I ask why you are not interested?


Me: Well really there are two issues here. First of all, I already have a very solid life insurance plan through my job at one of Canada's 50 Best companies. But second of all, I'm concerned about the way you were selling me this product. I'm in sales, and generally when you talk to a customer, you ask them what they are looking for from you, not what you can ram down their throat in the minimal amount of time you have with them. (I'm sure the beers may have made this language a bit more colourful... but it was my birthday... gimme a break!)


Telemarketer: Mr. Tyhurst, just so you know, there are many different options to our coverage, and the on I am offering you is not meant to replace your current plan, but supplement it for that extra protection for your family.


Me (acting interested just to see how he would handle it): Ok, I see what you mean, but I still don't think I'm interested.


Telemarketer: *He explains here for about another minute on the free $2000 of coverage I can get for 3 years without paying. As I'm hearing him talk, I'm thinking to myself "What the hell would I do with $2000 if I croak? And do I really want an insurance plan for $2000 that I didn't even ask for... sounds sketchy* Mr. Tyhurst, if you would like to take advantage of this offer? All that I would need would be your home address.


Me: *Now the red flags are going off, so I try to have a bit more fun* You know what, I could definitely be interested in that, however, I would like to receive the information by email. If I give you my email can you send me all the info?


Telemarketer: Sorry sir, but we do not give out that information via email.


Me: Can I get it on the Scotiabank website?


Telemarketer: Not on the Scotiabank site sir, you can access it at www.Scotialife.com

**The conversation went on for about another minute or so, with no sale closed, no information gained from me, and only a 3rd party website communicated via phone (which I have not visited). I had also requested that they do not contact me via phone anymore. Overall, I'd say the mission was a failure on his part**

Now, I'd like to do a short summary of the things that were so wrong with this call:
-All of the background stuff made me a grumpy bear to talk to on the phone. That's just how it was.

-These guys actually called me like a week before while I was at work, and I asked them to call back at 6pm
that night when I was home. I asked for that time because thats when I wanted it, not a week later on a friday at 6pm.

-Didn't ask me a single question until 3-5 minutes into the call. (How the heck was he supposed to know what to sell me?)

-Offering a free product ($2000 for 3 years) that I didn't particularly find any value in, ESPECIALLY if I have to give some 3rd party my address.

-Speaking of 3rd parties, Scotiabank clearly shit the bed here because they are either selling off my information (this guy had my cell phone #) OR this is actually a subsidiary of Scotiabank, but they don't give them access to my birthday, address, etc. The fact that this guy didn't have my address indicated to me that they were not part of Scotiabank and I sure as hell wasn't going to give them that information so they can send me more crap in the mail.

-They cannot send me any product details via email. What year are we living in? They expect me to accept some free insurance product over the phone without reading all of the fine print. Does this actually work on people?!? This blew me away.

Lesson of the day: Ask your customers about what they are looking for... it will go miles. If he was genuinely interested in what I wanted, he would have either already known it was my birthday, or found out so through conversation (trust me, I'm happy to share this info). If he would have found out it was my birthday he could have spun the whole conversation about life insurance and related it to my birthday and how every year it becomes more and more important to protect my loved ones. Then when I told him I was already covered, he could have pointed out some of the additional benefits that his product could have offered to supplement this plan... too bad he didn't get that far.