Customer Service Staff Constantly Repeating Your Name

[Ratherhaveacupofteaandabiscuit]

Over the past few years someone somewhere has clearly trained customer service staff to use customer’s first names as often as possible so as to appear authentic and friendly.

It actually achieves nothing of the sort.

In an effort to save my sanity from the strains of the various irritations of everyday life I have started counting the number of times my first name is used (an unasked for familiarity by the way, whatever happened to the social etiquette of using Ms/Mrs/Mr etc address to people you don’t know?) in customer service calls.

Have just had a call from Virgin Media and during a 4 minute phone call the agent managed to use my name 19 times.

Is this is a record?

whatever happened to the social etiquette of using Ms/Mrs/Mr etc address to people you don’t know?

Because if you don't know them, you can't really assume.

It is annoying though when anyone constantly repeats my name.

Sometimes they have to say it X amount of times to pass call audits

Poor buggers must get it from all sides in that job.

I worked front of house at a hotel chain 20 years ago, when I first started it was pushed to be professional & discreet, always use Sir/Madam, minimal conversation, we weren’t to pry why they were staying ect, by the time I left they were pushing us to ask guest questions, be curious about their stay, start using Mrs/Mr insert their surname…. I remember at the time thinking I sounded incredibly insincere/obvious that I’d been told to do this as I’d spent the 3 years perfecting my formal presentation.

My GPS surgery kept referring to me as Ma'am. If my blood pressure wasn't high beforehand it was adlftwards. If not Ms xx or my first name then surely Madam would have been correct.

Yep, 19 times is excessive. I'd say twice maximum.

They've maybe had feedback about using the customer's name more and they've thought to themselves, really? Watch this 😂

Is this something that’s mentioned in How to Win Friends and Influence People? It’s an outdated book and quite cringe.

Goddd it's a long time since I had the "pleasure" of working in a contact centre and we had all sorts of bullshit scripted rules scripted by people who hadn't worked on the phone in their lives.
Say no problem ? Loose points.
Not say X word but use Y word which means exactly the same... Loose points.
Points = bonus. Bonus = difference between a shit shit wage and a ok wage.
I imagine they are scripted and HAVE to use your name.
I do bloody hate it though. Hello Jessica ... How are you Jessica... Have you thought of this Jessica.

I worked with someone that’s punctuated every sentence with the name of whoever he was talking to. It used to wind me up that I started avoiding him and being busy if he looked like he was coming over.
morning managing, how are you today managing ? Just wondering managing, would it be possible for you to help me with something managing?
could you do XYZ managing. I really appreciate that managing 😡
I could feel myself getting riled up as soon as he started speaking.

Yes I'm thinking of changing Jessica to something else.