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Non-routine Calls for Information and Request Emails

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(Im)politeness at a Slovenian Call Centre

Part of the book series: Advances in (Im)politeness Studies ((AIMS))

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Abstract

This chapter investigates manifestations of impoliteness in inbound calls for information and request emails that deviate from the normative expectations identified in the previous chapter. The chapter is divided into two parts: divergent calls and emails, respectively. First, a brief introduction to non-routine calls for information is given.

He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.

—Dante Alighieri

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The two calls were taken by Agent 3, who worked at the call centre during lunch breaks only. However, two other instances of the exact same behaviour were identified in the data but are not presented in the analysis.

  2. 2.

    Such trains are cheaper but take longer to reach the destination and passengers need to change trains.

  3. 3.

    Although scripted materials of the call centre were not made available, other studies have found that apart from managing interactive spoken discourse (e.g., avoiding gaps and overlaps in turn transitions, frequent use of minimal responses or pausing so the customers can write down important information) agents are to pay attention to their voice quality and intonation, which reflect the degree of sincerity and confidence.

  4. 4.

    As the Company only has one automatic ticket machine placed at the main station in Ljubljana and has not yet launched an online system for selling tickets, the penalty fare only applies to staffed train stations, provided the ticket office was open at the time of the journey.

  5. 5.

    In this respect it was found that the faster the reply, the more similar the message to oral dialogue (Dürscheid & Frehner, 2013).

  6. 6.

    The fact that lower case is used in the email opening and closing suggests that as a standardised form they are automatically generated when the agents press the reply button. This further explains the fact that the customers are never addressed by their names.

  7. 7.

    This is also the only example in which any of the agents used block capitals.

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  1. Department of Translation Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia

    Sara Orthaber

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Orthaber, S. (2023). Non-routine Calls for Information and Request Emails. In: (Im)politeness at a Slovenian Call Centre. Advances in (Im)politeness Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43320-7_6

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