I absolutely hate people using my name in conversation. As you say, it feels patronizing, and to me it also feels fake and manipulative, especially in the context of customer support.
It's interesting to me how much advice about communication involves using a person's name. Do most people like hearing their name dropped frequently in conversations with strangers or near-strangers? Or is this one of those weird unproven "truths of the business" that get repeated because they sound good rather than because there's hard data backing up their effectiveness?
(I am not saying no hard data exists; I've just never seen any and the anecdotes I've heard indicate the opposite, so I'm curious.)
I feel similarly when someone uses my name more than feels natural, and I suspect my awareness of this being a persuasion technique has soured my response to others using it on me. I wonder about the technique's efficacy on people who are more or less aware of it.
You can say that in Polish, i.e. title "Pan" (Mr) or "Pani" (Ms) with either first name, last name or both. So I think people from certain cultural/linguistic backgrounds may not find it unnatural.
This seems to be common in the Philippines, home to many call centers. Many Filipinos are also prone to overusing Sir, to the point that one person I worked with used to refer to my colleagues as Sir John, Sir Bob etc (and no, this was not tongue in cheek).
It's interesting to me how much advice about communication involves using a person's name. Do most people like hearing their name dropped frequently in conversations with strangers or near-strangers? Or is this one of those weird unproven "truths of the business" that get repeated because they sound good rather than because there's hard data backing up their effectiveness?
(I am not saying no hard data exists; I've just never seen any and the anecdotes I've heard indicate the opposite, so I'm curious.)