THUD!

Every once-in-a-while I get a telephone-call from someone wanting to speak to my wife Linda.
I got one of these the other day — probably Thursday, December 27th, 2012.
“This is CVS Caremark,” the girl bubbled. “I need to speak to Linda Hughes.”
“Well, you won’t find here here any more,” I said. “She died some time ago.”
THUD!
“Oh, I’m deeply sorry. I’m sorry I called.”
It’s a response I’ve heard hundreds of times.
Telephone-training apparently doesn’t cover what to say if a client died.
CVS Caremark was my wife’s prescription coverage. It claimed to be as good as Medicare Part-D, but wasn’t.
“I need to know the date of her death so I can get her out of our records.”
“Will that actually happen?” I asked. “Seems I tried earlier, yet here you are calling me.”
“Yes, and I’m deeply sorry I called. That I reminded you of it.”
I wasn’t getting pre-programmed responses.
The script doesn’t cover death of a client.
Funny, reporting my wife died seems to always hit the caller in the solar plexus.
All-of-a-sudden real responses, instead of coached or from a prompt-sheet.