[jonathanlydall]

I think it's a South African thing, but just about any call I receive from a number I wouldn't be expected to recognize, be it from cold calling spammers or legit service providers, starts with "Hello, how are you?" to which I respond with "Sorry, do I know you?".

I wish call centres and companies would explain to their agents that it's not like approaching a customer who has walked into a physical shop where the customer already has the context of who they're talking to. Whereas on the phone I have no idea who it is that has called me, it might be an old acquaintance, it might be a call back I'm expecting about something, or might be a cold call that I want to hang up on as soon as possible (which is most of the time).

So legitimate callers would get the friendliest response from me if they simply started the call with "Hello, I'm calling from <place>, regarding <thing>, am I speaking to <your name>?"

[smeej]

In the U.S., the norm is to start with, "Hi, this is <name> with <place>. May I speak to <your name>?" and you're right, it's vastly better! Even when they're lying, at least I know what they're lying about! If they say they're calling about my car warranty or some other common scam, I can just hang up and they won't have a recording of my voice saying anything but hello.

The one that really gets me is when a doctor's office calls me about something, but their outgoing number is different from the number I have to call to reach them, and then they start asking me authenticating questions like my DOB and address.

No, buddy. You just called me from a number I do t recognize. I'm not going to give you identifying information!

Then they offer to give me a number where I can call them back, as though that resolves the issue. I'll call you back at your published number, where I always call you, but any old scammer could give me any old number to call them back and it wouldn't make it legitimate.

I just wish they would stop training all their patients to be scam victims.

[reportgunner]

By an insincere "how are you" they are extracting information on your current mood to engineer a proper communication protocol that is required to extract as much value for their personal objective as possible. I'm not disagreeing with you, just explaining their motivations to do it.

[jonathanlydall]

While it may be an intentional strategy for cold calling spammers, I doubt it because >99% of calls I receive do this, even from companies who I want to be calling me back, I think it's mostly a (pretty bad) cultural norm.

Also, for me it seems like a terrible strategy as I generally feel like responding to the greeting with: "Well, actually quite annoyed at this moment due to the appallingly poor way you've just started this call."