Ben’s dad had a basement full of wine that he bought so it could age. That was cool. Some were really old, too. Although Ben and I both don’t have any major wine knowledge we thought we could try, too.
We bought wine from different places. Giordano, a vintage family wine from Italy was one of them. They didn’t only sell wine it was a whole Italian package. With every order they would send wine along with other goodies, quite often typical Italian foods or tableware. We ended up with Giordano plates, glasses, serving bowls, silverware and much more.
At some point we realized that we didn’t drink that much wine and didn’t need to buy more. We also didn’t have room for all those dishes that we didn’t need. So after years of being a loyal customer, we slowed down our ordering. We were happy with our decision but Giordano wasn’t. We had probably put a whole generation of Giordano offspring through school.
They must have been somewhat perplexed. Possibly their revenues dropped dangerously low, too. Why would a good, trustworthy and paying customer just stop ordering? They started sending us more information and special offers, then the telephone calls started.
The person on the other end spoke High German with a thick Italian accent. They were determined and obstinate about telling us about their amazing wine offers. So much so that you couldn’t get a word in otherwise. There was nothing left to do except wait until they took a breath. That was usually after they said something like “When can we send it to you?” After an initial “No thank you” they would up the ante: more wine, lower price. Really??
Those of you who have read “Hello? Telephone Spam and Wrong Numbers” know that depending on my mood I can react differently to unsolicited calls. The Giordano calls were just that. On the other hand we had done quite a bit of business with them. They probably thought that was customer friendly service, you know, keeping in contact.
At the end of each call I usually, okay, always said “No thank you”. Sometimes it took longer sometimes shorter for the person on the other end to realize the conversation was over. During this time we still occasionally ordered when they sent a flyer. Just not as much as before. Then came the time when they obviously had transferred all their customer data to a databank. How would I know something like that, you might ask. Well, there were some very subtle signs.
The biggest sign was when they started their sales spiel like this. “You are a very good customer, you bought our wine for [insert amount] in the last 5 years…” Whoa, say WHAT? I was speechless. After I managed to catch my breath I asked her to repeat what she had said, which she did. I was mad that our personal data was so open and doubly surprised at the sum she said. Yes, we were a very good customer. I was able to end the conversation with a polite “No thank you” but was still in total disbelief.
A couple of months later we got another call. It started the same. The difference being they didn’t catch me off guard that time. I told her unequivocally that I had no intention of buying anything per telephone. I asked her if we had ever bought wine over the telephone, she said “no”. Then I asked her to type into the databank that we didn’t want to be contacted per telephone again.
I tried to be as nice as possible but I’m sure after we hung up the Italian woman thought “Wow, she got up on the wrong side of the bed!” But it worked, we have not been solicited per telephone by Giordano ever since. Come to think of it, the flyers have stopped, too.
I’m okay with that, if we need some wine we can buy a couple of bottles at a store. We don’t need a cellar full of wine. Giordano has redeemed itself in that they have finally stopped pestering us to buy their products. It won’t help you send any more offspring to school, but thank you Giordano anyway.
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