Comments on: Seriously, Are you a good Listener?

By: Kerber

Kerber — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:36:12 +0000

Well Kupe, you gave a perfect example of the kind of question people have been asking me for the last 30 years: “do you get one present from people or two?”.
The answer would be: “two from my parents, the rest of my relatives only gave one, I believe they really liked the idea.”

But the best is this “Why aren

By: Kupe

Kupe — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:33:31 +0000

Just got back from the gym. I used Mr. Fitzpatrick’s solution. I went with “Under the K’s – for Kupersmith”. It worked! Thanks!

By: Kupe

Kupe — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:25:54 +0000

Hey Tweety (Preeti),

That is hilarious. I’m glad we are all having fun with this one!!! I am headed to the gym shortly, so I’m going to try out some of the suggestions above from Mr. Patrick and Kerber who was born on Christmas. So Kerber, do you get one present from people or two?

By: Preeti

Preeti — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:19:55 +0000

My first name is Preeti and when I spell it for someone over the phone, they invariably hear Tweety!!!! Tweety!!??

By: TFitzpatrick

TFitzpatrick — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:04:54 +0000

When asked for my last name (Fitzpatrick), people often mis-hear me and think I’ve said “It’s Patrick.” I’ve taken to paraphrasing their question in my response: “My last name is [short pause] Fitzpatrick.” You might want to try saying, “Look under K — the last name is Kupersmith.” Give the listener a cue that will help direct them to WHERE to look, and hopefully their focus will be on the K bin rather than trying to envision how “Coopersmith” could be spelled with a K.

By: Kerber

Kerber — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:51:22 +0000

Very nice post mr. Kupersmith, I have a similar problem with my last name (Kerber) because it

By: Kupe

Kupe — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:23:06 +0000

I’ll try the “Kayfor” approach next time. Another quality we need as BAs is flexibility and persistance. We need to find different ways to attack a situation.

Thanks Kirk!

By: Kirk

Kirk — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:32:17 +0000

Another way to look at this is that perhaps we’re not understanding the user’s actual needs. They need to know your last name, and find the card that matches it. Thus they need to know the first letter of your last name. Perhaps you could try something like “K for Kupersmith”, as then when the (possibly natural) human response of stopping listening kicks in, they have the info they need.

Then you run the risk of course that they think your last name is something like “Kayfor”, but I wonder if this might work? It also is significantly different than the normal response in terms of ordering, cadence, etc that perhaps it would make them stop and think about what you’re saying before searching. A verbal way of introducing dissonance, such that their brain needs to engage?