Yet another phrase heard in direct sale advertisements. If they're flashing a phone number on the screen, then you can bet you will be told that the operators are standing by, waiting for you to give their drab, dull lives meaning.
It implies (without ever actually saying it) that the offer is only for a limited time, and that those operators may stop standing by at any moment, so you'd better get your order in right now. In fact, some of these advertisements actually include a ticking clock, suggesting that once the ad or paid program is over, nobody will be there to take your call. There will be, of course; since commercials can be seen these days at any time of the day or night, order desks are generally staffed continuously.
Actual research determined that the phrase had the opposite effect. If operators are "standing by", that must be because they don't spend very much time actually answering the phones and taking orders, because not many people are ordering the product. The phrase "If lines are busy, please keep trying" was found to work much better. If lines are busy, then the company must be swamped with orders because the product is so great. (This allows the vendor to theoretically hire fewer agents, which not only reduces the seller's overhead costs but also their apparent "supply", which — when coupled with the lack of contradictions at the customer's end of the phone line — make the product seem more valuable.)
Technically these commercials are usually incorrectly phrased. In telephone terms, an "operator" is a person who takes a call to redirect it to someone else. A person who actually takes a call to process it themselves is an "agent," and thus, they should be saying that "agents are standing by" rather than operators. However, the term "agent" is relatively modern, at least in this definition, and the average infomercial customer is over forty and is more likely to associate the word "agent" with "KGB" or "Maxwell Smart" than with "order clerk".
This phrase is often uttered at the end of a "This Product Will Change Your Life" spiel. "But Wait, There's More!" commercials will use it twice —once at the end of the initially offered, main item and one more time after offering the additional one. Compare Not Available in Stores, a claim that implies a product is so exclusive that you can only get it by calling right now.
Examples:
Advertisment
- Get a Mac: This exact phrase is uttered by PC in one of the ads, mocking Microsoft's focus on advertising.
- Progressive Auto Insurance: Double Subverted. Kenny Mayne declares, "Operators are not standing by." When an operator contradicts him, he replies that, first, they aren't operators but "trained professionals", and second, they're all in chairs: "Trained professionals are seated comfortably."
- Super Bowl: In the late 1970s, a voice-over disclaimer in an ad informs the audience that they must "Get into Federated now for a Super Bowl of savings! Operators Are Standing By! Offer not available in Squid Valley! Void where inflatable! Buy bonds!". Of course, it's a non sequitur after another, but that's just Shadoe Stevens' announcing style.
- Time-Life Music: In the era before online shopping, potential customers were given a phone number to call and advised to have credit card information at hand.
Anime & Manga
- Seiji Kishi: In two of the animes he's directed (Magikano and My Bride is a Mermaid) he's placed Parody Commercials that do about every entry in Advertising Tropes to get an In-Universe joke across. One of the closing lines, before the Rattling Off Legal, is "So, what are you waiting for? Operators Are Standing By! Call now!".
Films — Animation
- The Transformers: The Movie: The Junkions have strange speech patterns, prompting them to blurt nonsequiturs out of the blue. One of them starts yelling at someone to stop but ends up doing an ad for coffee and quoting this trope verbatim. The reason is that they learned about Earth's culture and languages by our broadcasts. Given how advertisement-heavy those are, well...
Wreck-Gar: Stop, thief! No welcome wagon, 'hello stranger' with that good coffee flavor for you! Offer expires while you wait.
Literature
- Overlord (2012): Ainz's advertisements for his lame-ass, not-actually-rune-crafted items urge potential customers by telling them that operators are standing by.
Live-Action TV
- Saturday Night Live: There's a TV ad offering courses on becoming call center operators. It, of course, ends with "operators are standing by".
- Screen One: In "Ghostwatch", Sarah Greene's husband is handling the studio phones to receive the viewers' ghost stories.
- Web Soup: Name-dropped in an eponymous section about the strange local commercials that have found their way to the internet.
Music
- They Might Be Giants: This is the title of a song, which imagines what the operators are doing while they wait for you to call.
Operators are standing by
Smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee
Bounce their shoes at the end of their feet
And wish they could go home
Newspaper Comics
- Garfield: On November 15, 2004, Garfield is watching TV and sees the phrase "Operators are standing by to take your order!" He goes to the phone to tell the operators that he won't be buying anything... but as a cat, they can't actually understand him.
- Peanuts: Played for Laughs. Sally is watching one of those type of ads. She runs to get Charlie Brown, only to find out the commercial is done, and she missed the phone number that she was going to call. The last panel has Sally lying in bed with a worried look, muttering if she could sleep when she knows there's operators standing by.
Radio
- Bob & Ray: Parodied as far back as The '40s by this duo of radio satirists, who turn a sponsor's real commercials into a series of spectacularly unsuccessful efforts to 'make a simple phone call' to contact the 'trained operators' who were, according to the copy, standing by to sign customers up for a free trial TV set. "No, no, they mean we'll be out at what time's convenient to us, pal. Yeah, they don't say that, do they?".
Web Originals
- Playing With Mah Wii: One of Math's Awkward Fears is phone operators.
Western Animation
- Celebrity Deathmatch: During the main event of the episode "37th Annual Sci-Fi Fight Night", Nick and Johnny start advertising some Celebrity Deathmatch merchandise that fans can call in to purchase. Johnny also quotes the trope verbatim.
- Darkwing Duck: The Liquidator's sales pitch-centric dialogue includes phrases like "But Wait, There's More!" and "Operators are standing by!".
- The Simpsons: Parodied in "Radio Bart". Homer sees an advertisement for the Superstar Celebrity Microphone. note Homer, convinced that his time for buying the product is running out, hastily calls and asks if there are any left. The operator there replies "Yeah, a couple." The camera then pans out to reveal that the warehouse is, in fact, full of unsold microphones.
