Before I became a plumber I worked for a transport company in their sales and marketing team. I was the telemarketer but I also assisted with the running of the sales office. I would always have calls come through from customers wanting to get a quote on the cost of freight for their parcel.
Every account had different rates so I would have to look up the account name to get the list of their scheduled rates per destination.
I took some funny calls. I remember one call that I had in the first couple of months working there. It was an older guy wanting to get a price on the cost of freighting a pump to Sydney. I asked for the necessary dimensions and weight of the pump and then asked if he had an account with us. He advised that he did and the rest of the conversation went like this…
Me: So can you tell me what the account name is?
Customer: Fanny Pump
(I suck my lips together to stop a giggle from escaping my mouth)
Me: Fanny Pump you say?
Customer: Yeah, Fanny Pump. Our head office is based down south and our account was set up there.
Internally I’m thinking what the heck is a Fanny Pump and what does it do?
Me: Okay, just let me put you on hold while I work out the price for you.
So I typed Fanny Pump into my computer to bring up their special schedule of rates and of course there was no such account.
Maybe I was spelling fanny wrong? So I typed in every possible fanny I could think of.
F-A-N-N-I-E no
F-A-N-N-I no
F-A-N-I-E no
F-A-N-I no
F-A-N-Y no
I started to stress and thought I’d have to suck up my Christian pride and get the customer to spell fanny to me.
Me: Sir, are you able to spell your account name because for some reason I can’t find your account.
Customer: That’s strange. We’ve been sending freight with you for years. It should be under the name F-A-N-I space P-U-M-P.
Me: Okay, that’s weird because I typed that in before and your account didn’t come up. Let me spell it back to you:
F for Fred
A for –
Customer: No, it starts with an S. S for Sam, A for apple, N for Nelly and I for Idiot.
Okay, he didn’t say I for Idiot but I bet he would have thought it!!
My cheeks burned after the penny dropped with the spelling and I found the account quite quickly and worked out the price.
If you say it out aloud F and S sound the same. Especially on the phone!
Anyway, a few years later I came into contact with my first Sani Pump. It was specified on a commercial job where there was no way for the shower waste to run back to the main sewer stack in a high rise building, so we had to install one of their grey water pumps.
Every time I saw Sani Pump specified on a job, I would smile and think back to when I first got acquainted with their name.
Have you ever had an embarrassing moment while talking to a client on the phone? Do spill so I don’t feel so bad about my experience!
