I was on a call with a customer who tends to waste our time going in circles on conference calls. We’d had a guy on our team but I’d transferred him out because he’d made a bunch of mistakes. The customer was complaining about him and I told him we’d transferred the guy.
He says, “Don’t cut me off when I’m talking. Or did the phone cut off and you didn’t realize I was still talking so you thought you could talk?” I felt my tiger claws instantly flare out but I kept it in and let him feel like the big man on the call.
It didn’t sit well with me though because he’s always condescending to my partner and he always asks me why I don’t laugh at his jokes. The reason is that I’ll laugh when he’s funny. I hate that he says that like it’s part of my expected service. I hate what a pompous, condescending person he is. Plus, it was the first time my assistant sat in on a sales call. I didn’t want her to see me letting a customer disrespect me just because he thought he had a right as a customer, and thinking that’s the way it is.
We had a bunch of things to do since I was basically taking over this account and at the end of the week I made a list of remaining action items. At the end of the list I wrote: If you ever speak to me like that in front of my team again, I won’t be able to help you.