Funny Video…
This has nothing to do with business but it might make you laugh. Its a video that Martin Blain, our Sales Director, just showed me of his children playing in the garden…
Archived entries for Videos
Quiet Please!!!
Quiet please!
As a telephone answering service we positively promote the use of vocal communication. The old BT advert used to encourage us…‘Its good to talk’ – and we totally agree! But there seems to be a dark force on our public transport systems that is trying to shut us all up.
If you travel by train you will have undoubtedly experienced them – the Quiet Zone Police. An army of people descend upon Great Western & Virgin trains on a daily basis and head straight for the quiet carriage to partake in their assault on anyone that dares to mutter a word or emit sounds of any description.
Returning from London last week I encountered one of these cruel monsters. As soon as I sat in my seat I could see her glaring at me over the top of her headrest. Seeing that the bodily movement of removing my coat and the ear-splitting sound of rustling cotton had alerted her I found myself saying “sorry…”, sorry about what I’m not quite sure.
What I didn’t expect was the full scale attack when I opened my laptop and began typing some notes up. “DO YOU KNOW THIS IS A QUIET CARRIAGE!?!?!” she bellowed across the carriage causing the passenger in front of her to take a bite out of his coffee cup. Unaware, that she was directing her vitriol at me I carried on tapping away oblivious of the volcano that was about to erupt. “DO YOU MIND PLEASE!!!!!” she exploded, standing up now and spinning around to glare at me like an extra from Doctor Who. Unfortunately, I did the worse possible thing. I started to chuckle. Not directly at the woman but at the chap that was sat opposite me wagging a finger at me and smiling…
I could go on and tell you about the infamous Battle of Swindon on the 19.45 from Paddington but it gets a bit messy and is not suitable for a business blog. However, after reviewing the rules on Quiet Zones from the train providers I couldn’t find any mention on the use of laptops apart from that they should be set to ‘silent’. Does that include typing?
If so then Virgin may want to rethink this advertising campaign…
by Steve West
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Click here to watch awful Virgin Train advert with TYPING in the quiet carriage!!!
Is teamwork important?
Running a telephone answering service involves getting a great many people to work together across different departments and, to keep our customers happy, every employee, from the most junior to the most senior, needs to know their part in the chain and to do their job to the best of their ability. If one part fails then the result is poor call handling and a dissatisfied caller and potentially customer.
Visitors to our offices will have noticed our boardroom is adorned with an enormous image of a “human tower” known as a castell. Castells are traditionally built during festivals in Catalonia, Spain. At these festivals, several teams meet and try to build the most impressive towers they can. The teams usually come from towns and villages where the castell is viewed as symbolic in that everybody’s effort counts, from the oldest to the youngest. Besides the people who actually climb, many are also needed to form the pinya (the base of the castell), to build to 9 levels as many as 200 are needed for the pinya. The pinya helps sustain the weight and acts as a sort of safety net, falls are rarely serious beyond bumps and bruises.
A castell is considered a success when everyone has climbed into place, the enxaneta (the last one) climbs up to the top, raises one hand (with four fingers erect, said to symbolize the stripes of the Catalan flag), climbs down the other side of the castell, and then everyone else comes down safely. Unsurprisingly the enxaneta is the lightest team member, children as young as 5 will often climb 30 feet into the air to great applause.
Would you send your youngest to the top? Click here to see a human ‘castell’ being built
Eating whilst on the phone…
I was speaking with someone on the phone earlier today. Nothing strange about that you say. But what was strange was that they were eating.
A carrot.
A raw carrot.
Now I commend anyone for abiding by a healthy and nutritious diet but what baffled me was that this person had decided to do it whilst making a phone call. And not stopping while they continued with the phone call. They must have had a big bag of carrots. It made me think about why it bothered me.
Is it rude?
Could I not hear what they were saying properly? Did it make me feel hungry? And then it came to me in a flash – my mum telling me when I was small lad to “Never speak with your mouth full!” So is this no longer the case? Can we all munch away whilst spitting crumbs everywhere? It also made me remember this sketch from a popular comedy show and also why we don’t allow any eating in our contact centre…
View video here of why we dont allow our agents to eat whilst on the phone…
by Steve West
Marketing & Business Development Manager