I've discovered another trick for controlling people on the phone. It involves the use of names. Let me explain.

When I am dealing with a customer or one of the other contracting companies that assists us in providing technical service and I sense that they don't necessarily trust me, or think that I am on the up and up , I do a very simple thing that works at least 75% of the time. I give them my first and last name. You see, in a lot of call centers there is this fear of giving out your name, in some places you are not allowed to give your name out, you have to say,"I'm operator 343" or some B.S. like that. Refusing to give your name is just shady in my opinion(unless you are writing a blog about where you work, like this guy I know). But if you give your first and last name out, you have automatically given people a reason to trust you. You aren't just an anonymous call center employee, you are a person. It's amazing how this works. I have gotten companies to extend my company credit just by the way I present myself over the phone. It also makes people want to trust you and want to do what you ask. Of course, it goes without saying that you can't be trying to pull something shady when you do this, unless you want to make up a name, which is just really tacky.

This works the opposite way too, when I am dealing with either a corporate customer, or one of my service providers, and I think that they are trying to pull the wool over my eyes, or are just blowing me off, or that they won’t really authorize what they just said they would. I ask them for their name, after they give me some generic sounding first name, I ask them what their last name is, and their position there. People stutter and get real nervous and sometimes change their original story. It’s one of my favorite mind tricks.