Telephone survey

Most of the time I don’t like telephone surveys. And I usually try to cut the caller off before they’ve had a chance to say more than a couple of words. But this afternoon, a woman called doing a health care survey and, while I wasn’t in the mood for it, there was something about her voice and telephone mannerism that was so sweet and gentle and kind that I just couldn’t hang up on her. Boyohboy, there’s the secret to successful telephone surveys.

She and I talked for about 15 minutes. She seemed a little nervous and I heard children in the background so I kind of assumed she was working from home and, maybe, new at this. I mentioned the children and before you know it we had a nice little chat about life in general. That was unexpected and quite pleasant. She really was a gentle soul.

I pretty much sneezed my way through the survey— my autumn allergies have been raging the past couple of days. After every sneeze, she wanted to say, “Bless you,” but it became apparent that my sneezes were outnumbering her ability to keep up. I told her that maybe we should address that issue after the survey was over.

And when the survey was completed, she thanked me profusely, hoped I’d have a wonderful rest of the weekend and said, “God bless you many times.”

That had to been the most unusual (and best) survey or unsolicited phone call I’ve ever received.