How To Do A "Courtesy Call" With Courtesy

It's been about six months or so since I received a "courtesy call" from my bank. The last time they called, they told me that according to the kinds of transactions I do, that perhaps I was on the wrong service plan. They assured me that day that if I were to change my banking package, I would save a few dollars per month. So I did. And they were right - I saved a few bucks each month.

That call, although it was an interruption in my day, was a courtesy. I was paying too much. They noticed it. They told me. They fixed it. Simple courtesy.

But how often do you get a phone call from organizations who preface their sales pitches with, "this is just a courtesy call." Then they go on, under the guise of offering you courtesy, to try to sell you something, offer you something free in exchange for an appointment or simply try to extract information from you? What's the courtesy there?

A courtesy call is not courteous if all you're wanting to know is if I want to buy another product or service from you. Giving money back to me is a courtesy. Me giving you more money is not courtesy - it's a sale. And just because I may have done business with you in the past does not give you the right to abuse that privilege and attempt to line your own pockets with my money again. That's not courtesy. That's greed.

If you want to make a real "courtesy" call, then don't call and interrupt me when I'm sitting down to dinner. Be courteous and book an appointment to speak with me. Send me something in the mail and offer me the choice of whether I want to speak with you more. Give me the opportunity to extend you some courtesy. What you're giving me right now is not a courtesy call - its an intrusiveness call.

Don't pick through my past purchase information, send it to some overseas call-center, interrupt my dinner, assume I'll welcome your intrusion and expect me to buy from some anonymous person on a telephone and insult me by calling it a courtesy call.

If you want to make a real courtesy call, stop making it all about you and start making it about me, the customer. To make a courtesy call requires my permission for you to call otherwise its not courteous. Sharing my purchase history with some telemarketing call center is not courteous. Asking for a credit card number on the phone is not courteous. Asking me to drop everything I'm doing to discuss with a stranger how I can part with more of my money is not courteous.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Look, if you want to make your intrusive phone call more courteous, develop a Service-Leadership Attitude. How? At the time of my first purchase, set up your courtesy call then. Tell me when you're going to call. Tell me what you will want to discuss. Tell me how long you will take and finally, tell me what's in it for me. That's courteous. Make the time specific, send me a reminder by mail and then keep your word of five minutes to follow up. That's courteous.

But stop interrupting me as a "courtesy." Its not courteous. It's rude.