Why we hate call centre staff using our first name

PHONING a call centre is one of life’s great frustrations. Beyond the endless instructions about which buttons to press and the terrible hold music, the stranger on the other end of the line can be overfamiliar.

But if a call centre worker uses your name five times in the first minute of conversation, this is because it is the quickest way to try to build ‘rapport’.

An Open University study has found the repetition of a customer’s name is the most popular strategy used by call centres to try to build a relationship with customers.

However, the author says it doesn’t really work – because people can find it ‘cringey’.

Call centre workers are trained in tricks to win customers over, including the ‘verbal handshake’ where they ask the customer their name at the first opportunity, for example with the phrase: ‘You’re speaking to X. May I take your first name?’ They can be told to use empathy, such as saying ‘I understand that must be really frustrating for you’, or to engage in small talk.

However the study, conducted at a call centre in Scotland, found that most go for simple name repetition.

The research by linguistics lecturer Anna Kristina Hultgren is published in the Journal of Sociolinguistics.

On website The Conversation, she wrote: ‘You may be used to a Starbucks barista asking your name, but that has a businessrelated function – to distinguish customers’ drinks orders from one another. In call centres, the purpose is purely to build rapport. In both contexts, it can feel cringey.’