Inspired by this thread - has there ever been a time that you responded favorably to a cold call either at home or work? Or can you think of any situation in which you might be? I can’t think of one myself.
Basically, I figure if I want something, I can figure out where to get it and when I want it. And I tend to think (rightly or wrongly) that a firm would be less likely to need to annoy uninterested folk through cold calling if their product/service were good. But it must work on some people at some times, or companies wouldn’t continue doing it. Now where did I place my penis enlarger…
Kind of. I readily got into a conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness who had approached me the other day. I was excited because it was my first time. I quickly lost interest.
Do you mean a completely cold call? Or an uninvited call from a company you have done business with before?
Several times in the past year or so I’ve bought a case of wine when the wine merchant I occasionally use has phoned me up on spec. They seem to have uncanny timing, as they usually call just when I’ve almost run out of wine and am feeling spendy.
No doubt I’m near the top of some golden list of mugs for their telesales people.
Depends how “cold”. At work I’ve had service reps and books reps cold call me for products I’ve never needed before, but after the call discovered would be useful. Some reps were ones I’ve done business with before, but some were cold, but in areas related to what I do.
Kinda. I get a pretty regular stream of calls and emails from legal recruiters here at work. I’ve responded a couple of times when I was looking to make a move.
My husband signed us up for AT&T’s UVerse because a guy stopped by our house to let us know they were now offering cable and Internet in our neighborhood. We dealt with AT&T for our home and cell phones already, they weren’t new to us, and we hated Comcast so we were thrilled to ditch them. But frankly, a targeted mailing would have had the same result. This just had the benefit of on-the-spot installation rather than having to schedule it.
I can’t think of specific occurrences, but yes, there have been times when I welcomed a cold call. Usually at work for work-related reasons.
Got it - I once needed a call center to do some call-receiving for me. Got out of a meeting, phone rang, and it was a call center in Portland Oregon who wanted to know if I had any need of in-bound call center work. Contracted with them for about a year and a half.
I’ve never done any purchasing for my jobs. The only solicitations I have received at work were for investments, organizations, etc. And as much as I don’t want them to call me at home, it really bugs me to have them call me at work. Not sure why I feel that way.
I think I would consider a call from someone I had previously done business with - either at work or home - different from a completely cold call.
When I was young and naive I got a call at work once with a hot investment tip. This was at the beginning of the dot com boom, and I spent a lot of time talking to the guy. I think I actually invested (and lost) a relatively minor sum. What a scam.
A headhunter called me at home. He had done his homework, was positive and asked if I was interested in talking to this big company. I eventually got the job he was talking about, and, though the job sucked, that wasn’t his fault. So that was a good one.
Once. I had just bought my first (and only) automobile, and was considering joining AAA. I had gotten a cold call from them about six months earlier, so I wasn’t real surprised when they phoned back; their timing just happened to be good on the second try.
I had a guy drop by and offer to do a proposal for re-doing the driveway. I was legitimately interested in it although it turned out to be more than I could budget.
The driveway is in pretty poor condition though so I guess he had good odds that the homeowner would at least be willing to hear his pitch.
Once I got a phone survey about tissues, an hour’s worth of questions about Kleenex vs Puffs vs Scotties. Well at the time I was in a bit of a pickle in having to chose between my then gf and my best friend. I welcomed the distraction.
I got an unsolicited email at work promoting a particular vehicle tracking service. I had just got out of a meeting about emergency procedures related to tracking a particular vehicle. The email offered a system that has been the perfect solution to our needs.
I don’t think I’ve ever welcomed a completely unsolicited telephone call. But I’ve occasionally done business with a company that has dropped a flyer in my mailbox. And just last week I got a call from a credit card company. They asked me why I hadn’t used that credit card since I received it and I told them I only got it in order to get a free gift. In return, they offered to switch me to a credit card with a much better reward program (cash back instead of “Sony points”), and I thought that was nice.
Prior to the internet I relied on wholesalers and manufacturer’s reps to keep me supplied with data books. One or two of them were attractive women. The data books were all marked with fairly steep retail prices, but I never knew any working engineer that ever paid a dime for them.
Most of the reps were friendly sorts and not too hard-sell, so it usually made for a pleasant break to take time to chat with them. They were often useful when we had supply problems, or needed application help, etc. so it paid to have an established relationship.
I got my first job in the IT industry through a cold call recruiter (and the job also sucked.) But I still did not welcome the call at first because I assumed it was a sales call.
