I may be naive, but I cannot think of anybody ever buying something off of a telemarketer, especially nowadays with voice mail and caller I.D. Yet apparently there are still telemarketers out there calling people. What’s the deal? I assume SOME FOLKS must be willing to give their credit card information out to strangers calling them over the phone because these places are still in business. Any ideas?
You basically answered your own question. They exist because there ARE people who fall for it. If there was no money in it, they wouldn’t continue doing it.
The same way spammers do: by making a massive volume of calls at a low cost. If they only pay people per sale/success the costs could be rather low.
You basically answered your own question. They exist because there ARE people who fall for it. If there was no money in it, they wouldn’t continue doing it.
Then perhaps I should ask HOW AND WHY so many people DO fall for it. Do you know?
Many people are uneducated, unsophisticated, and/or gullible. Telemarketers are clever, do their research, and often skirt legalities and possess questionable morals.
In other words, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
It’s all about volume. It’s like comparing rodents to humans. Sure, we have well over a 50% survival rate in our young, and let’s say rodents have a 5% survival rate (making up numbers). But rodents spend way less time on reproduction and child rearing and produce hundreds of times more offspring than humans. They are less picky about what they eat. They take what they can get. Thus, rodents are extremely successful.
I’ve had a few miserable, short experience as a telemarketer. The volume of calls you have to make is mindblowing and the success rate is dismal, but companies can make a ton of calls with very little investment.
Telemarketers are the rodents of the sales world.
Old people. When my aunt started losing her ability to take care of herself, before it was obvious that it was dementia, the telemarketers had already found her. One of the symptoms that got her kids to notice the problem was all the checks she was writing to various ‘charities’.
Phishing is a great word because the telemarketers really are fishing. They have to know the right bait to use for each type of catch they are after and they have to cast their line many times but the fish are there.
It’s not just old people. Every once in a while, you just happen to hit the right person at the right time with something they want.
A few years ago, I bought a marketing and practice management kit for my accounting practice. Among the materials was a how-to guide for gaining accounting customers (businesses with bookkeeping and payroll needs) by telemarketing. The idea is that someone working an 8 hour day should generate about 1 or 2 leads per day and that about 3 leads per week turn into clients. So… even though 99.9% of people are not interested, there’s one business owner in a thousand thinking “I really need an accountant” just as his phone rings. If you make enough calls, you find them. And since the sale is often for 4,000+/year in services, with about 1,300 in profit after fixed and variable costs, the telemarketer more than pays for their wages. (The materials estimated about $250 as an average cost of acquisition per new client this way.)
Heck, there was a sociology study that had college students randomly asking other students if they wanted to have sex, no strings attached. The number of yes responses - especially from female students - was much higher than you might think. It really is just a numbers game, no matter what you’re trying to get. You just have to keep shrugging off rejection and abuse until you get a yes.
When I was in telemarketing we didn’t take payment over the phone. Anyone ordering received the bill in the mail.
I’m a telefundraiser*, and can assure you that anywhere from 10-20% of folks we ring (on a cold call) will donate to whichever charity we are representing on the day, rising to 40-70% on repeat calls.
And of those who do respond positively, 25% will give you their cc details over the phone. It never ceases to amaze me just how trusting people can be.
*Just a glorified telemarketer. I’m still ‘selling’ (the value of the charity) it’s just that they are NFP orgs rather than commercial entities.
Another factor is that telecommunication costs have dropped significantly in the last decade or so, in particular there’s no longer any extra charge for domestic long distance. When making thousands of calls a day this adds up quick. Of course there’s also been a huge increase in answering machines, VM, and Caller ID (I can’t remember the last time I actually answered a phone with “Hello?”) but a lot of older people still don’t/won’t/can’t use any of those and, unfortunately, they are also telemarketers prime targets.
I’ve said this before, I’m all for free trade and all but telemarketing should be illegal. The phone system is not a ‘broadcasting’ medium so using it for mass, unsolicited, commercial calls should not be allowed.
I did this in high school when I was 16. Made 10 bucks an hour when the minimum wage was $2.20/hr.
I set appointments for a “Whole home cleaning system”. A hellacious expensive vacuum cleaner.
We would tell them they’ve won 6 bacon-wrapped sirloin steaks, and when would be a good time to bring them by and show them the Compact home cleaning system?
I rocked setting appointments, but I don’t remember the closure rate. Enough to pay me 10 bucks an hour, commission to salesmen, and still buy steaks!
They still operate because there are still a few who buy from them.
Well, they may be just doing their job but personally, I think it’s terrible how persistent these callers are. They take your time, invade your privacy and harass you with calls. I wonder why the authorities find it difficult to stop them. What’s the DNC list for?
This is why I always report such calls to http://www.callercenter.com and the FTC in an attempt to get them investigated and penalized.