I've been answering the phone to new clients for years and I think I'm normally pretty patient and understanding of those who don't have English as a first language, or speech impediments, or are hard of hearing. We normally get there in the end.
I've just had a person with a very heavy accent mumbling at me while also having a conversation (I think) with someone else. He might have been talking Italian, but I can't be sure. I apologised for not catching what he was saying, said I thought we had a bad connection (we didn't, the connection's fine, I was just trying to be tactful) and asked if he help my by slowing down and speaking a little more clearly. Broke out in a cold sweat when he continued with the hurried mumbling and I still couldn't understand a thing. Normally you get the odd word to work from, but this was just a torrent of sound.
In the end I broke in and said I was very sorry but the line was too bad to continue and we'd phone him back tomorrow morning (when one of my employees who speaks a couple of languages including Italian) is in the office. He just kept mumbling and after repeating myself I eventually had to put the phone down on him.
One of my contractors was in the office and said something that implied that he thought I was rude to have put the phone down on a potential client. AIBU?
If anyone has useful advice on how to manage this better I'd be grateful. I want to be able to deal with everyone politely and efficiently.