When I last worked for an employer, some time ago, I had the most fabulous office.
It was spacious with large glass windows at the back.
Those windows looked out over a small valley in a nature reserve.
At the right time of year that valley was full of the most magnificent purple blossoms from the Jacaranda trees that grew there and in spring I could hear the bird-song coming up from the valley.
One day the CEO of the company came to see me.
Our office manager had been away on maternity leave.
She was enjoying motherhood so much that she had decided not to return to work.
Also, we had been building up another division of the company and were about to hire two new sales people.
The CEO wanted me to vacate my office and move into the office manager's old office.
The idea was that it would move me closer to the sales desk to keep an eye (and ear) on the inside sales staff. The other senior salesperson in the office was already on the opposite side of the sales desk and between us we could effectively keep tabs on things. (Needed more than one of us because we were often out on sales calls.) Me moving would also allow us to convert my office into two offices for the incoming sales people.
I wasn't overly keen on the idea but the CEO reminded me I was a shareholder and it was for the good of the company.
What started to happen after that was that quite often I would be asked by the inside sales staff to handle problem calls.
Typically, the request would be something like,
"Can you deal with this bitch on the phone, she's driving me nuts!"
Sorry for the language but it's a quote.
Within 10 - 30 minutes I'd return to the sales desk with an order, (well, about 80-90% of the time, anyway).
The inside sales girls were almost always dumbfounded.
"You got an order out of that .....!"
Now, this was often my chance to have some fun.
So, I would say something like,
"Well, of course, she was only a woman and putty in my hands"
At this point the girls would often make gestures of pretending to put their fingers in their mouth and throwing up. Sometimes,they would sticky tape a bus ticket to me and say I had "tickets on myself". Once they even gave me a toy trumpet and asked me to blow my own horn. (I hope you understand these analogies and they are not uniquely Australian).
Anyway, it was all good fun.
The point here though is that I was very good at converting irate callers into customers.
Want to know how?
Click here to find out how.