How do you handle telemarketers?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Where I worked, we were only allowed to wait for sixty seconds before hanging up and scheduling a re-call. We were well aware of this “strategy,” and usually only waited for twenty seconds or so, with full approval from the management. So, laying the phone down uses up no more phone time than a call in which the entire spiel is given.

  • Posted by Glee *

Our company had very cheap phone rates. A call (Out of curiosity I asked, and was told that this was why we only called out-of-state numbers.) I don’t know if there’s a special rate for telemarketing companies, but just a few sales were enough to pay for a week, or so, worth of calls. Our spiel was at least nintey seconds, if allowed to finish, and trying to keep the customer on the phone could eat up another minute.

I sincerely doubt that the telemarketing industry agonizes over the phone bill. They’re not going to take special note of a Mr. Glee who tied them up for a few extra seconds and write you off as a lost cause.

If you situation is as bad as you say, the only way to stop this is to keep a notebook by the phone and note the company, time, and that you asked to be removed. Ask for the telemarketer’s name or operator number (never happened in my company, but perhaps a lazy telemarketer who doesn’t put your name down on the no-call list may be galvanized into action by you taking their name.) Give them 24-48 hours to process your request, and then if the same company calls, tell them that you made the request on such-and-such date to (Name) and if called again, you will report them to the FCC and BBB. I know it seems like a pain in the ass, but it will make the calls stop.

62

Would you recommend it to young people as a career?
Would you be happy if someone told a member of your family to aim for it?

Do you think that cold-calling requires ‘quality communication skills’? Don’t you just read from a prepared script?

Ditto for sales techniques - aren’t you supposed to override customer objections and sell at all costs?

I personally wouldn’t call working out a schedule ‘problem-solving’, but then I was a computer programmer.
Don’t some companies just get telemarketers to work regular hours?

Ditto for ‘strong computer skills’. Don’t you mean ‘typing’?

What qualifications do you need to be a telemarketer?
What training courses do you go on once you are working?
How do you become a senior telemarketer? (presumably you learn to type faster? :rolleyes: )

And how much of that excellent achievement is down to you, as opposed to your telemarketing experience?
Didn’t you have good educational qualifications?
It’s great that you have done so well - but be honest, did the telemarketing help you at all?

Yes, we agree that any job is better than being unemployed. I said what crummy jobs I did in a previous post.
But what job would you turn down to be a telemarketer?
And of course what I meant by job satisfaction was ‘did you enjoy the job while you were doing it?’, not ‘were you glad to have a job at all?’

63

I didn’t intend to compare telemarketers to muggers (I still think they are timewasting losers, who should get a proper job). I was (admittedly in a clumsy fashion) trying to point out that your enjoyment at hassling us, because we hassle you, all started when you hassle us with the original phone call.

What sort of career is that?
And why do you need to be a telemarketer to point out what a cr*p job it is?

So wasting a minute or so of your time by leaving the phone and walking away is ‘malicious’? :confused:
But phoning me to cold sell a product I don’t want is just ‘not welcome’? :rolleyes:
And why do you enjoy annoying people? (Is that a qualification for being a telemarketer?)

You are trying to make money by disturbing as many people as possible.
You don’t know anything about the people you annoy, nor do you care. You have a script and you’re going to read it.
But when a householder treats you like you’ve just treated him, they are at fault? :smack:

Perhaps you should speak to a real salesman. My mate reached a senior sales position in a top company by hard work (not ‘reading a script’, which any fool can do):

  • he identified the target market
  • he kept records of contacts, and got to know them personally
  • he analysed market trends to see where sales opportunities would arise
  • he liaised with the developers of his company products to see where best to initially sell them
  • he helped organise product launches and upgrades by making sure the right customers were invited

How many of these real sales strategies do telemarketers use?
Or do they just get lists of random phone numbers to call?

What other job uses the ‘sales skills’ of telemarketing?

Did you ever think that the ‘discipline’ needed to deal with customer hatred was really self-delusion that you were doing a worthwhile job?

If you’re not dumb, why do you schedule me for another call? Oh, of course you enjoy harassing people!
Don’t you ever wonder why people dislike your profession so much?

Finally, if you’re not dumb, why haven’t you got a proper job?

64

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Jesus, it’s not as if they’re planning a career in the mafia! It’s just a freakin’ job. While I wouldn’t recommend it, simply because of the abuse and boredom of having to repeat the same thing over and over all day long, I preferred it to flipping burgers.

**

Yes, we did read from a script, but theres a world of difference in the person who can read as naturally as they would speak, and a person who says, “Hello. My. Name. Is. Mike. And. I’m. Calling. From . . .” So, yes, a minimum leval of communication skills are necessary. Plus, you need to be personable, and intelligent enough to answer questions quickly, and politely. Communication skills are not intuitve: a good many people sincerely have difficulty in expressing themselves politely and smoothly.

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It’s not as easy as it sounds. Without some salesmanship and good communication ability, no matter how many times you say, “Don’t hang up yet,” the customer will, if the person sounds like a zombie.

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In a call center, sometimes reorganizing your fellow employees in order to cover five people who called off takes the orginizational skills of a four star general.

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Some do, some don’t. Some work out schedules based on volume, what sales hours are tending to be “peak” based on different times of the month, employees who call-off, and other variables.

**

Some places require a bit of shuffling from screen to screen quickly based on what is going on. Knowing how to navigate through a program is another skill which is not innate. A lot of people, even in this day and age, have never used a computer.

Personally, I’d turn down a lower-paying job.

We come back again to a point which has been posted again and again: Sometimes a “proper” job is not available, due to the current job market, lack of higher education, or advanced job skills. Not everyone can be a computer programmer.

No, just pointless.

Because they are ORDERED TO DO SO! Following the rules as set down by the management is not “dumb” in any sense. Do you honestly think that people wake up one morning and say, “You know, I really hate my fellow man, and I’d like to try to annoy him. I think I’ll go get a job at the telemarketing firm!” Do you really think its an industry that scouts for angry/annoying people?

No! These are normal, well-adjusted people of average intelligence, who have a family, and bills to pay. They get telemarketing calls themselves, you know. It’s just a job!

65

The main reason telemarketing pisses me off is this:

Because I get telemarketing calls, I had Caller ID put on my phone service. Of course, I had to get some phones that could read that info, so I know who’s calling me. Unfortunately, telemarketing companies BLOCK CALLER ID- so, instead of showing me who’s calling, it shows “UNAVAILABLE” or “OUT OF AREA” (even the damn phone company, which amused me to no end when they called to ask if I was enjoying the new Caller ID they’d just installed… but I digress).

So… I’m thinking about getting that new privacy service, to block those companies that try to sneak onto my phone line that way. Of course, that costs MORE MONEY.

In other words, to keep companies from calling me up and pressuring me into buying their crap, I have to PAY MONEY. I’m being extorted!

Now, why do I have to pay to keep you from pestering me, Snooooopy?

66

I assumed you were a telemarketer because you put:

‘… to end the supposed “harassment” that they cause?’,
presumably meaning that you don’t consider telemarketing a harassment.

In my experience, only telemarketers think that way.
I happily withdraw my suggestion that you are, or have ever been, a telemarketer.

Incidentally, why would it be a ‘snide’ suggestion that you were a telemarketer?
(Could it be that you consider it a crummy job too?)

Also I think you missed a point in your last paragraph - you should surely have said ‘…whatever legal means are at their disposal to keep a roof over their heads…’.

Firstly I agree with your intended point - I have already listed some crummy jobs I took to support myself (but I have never sunk so low as telemarketing).
Secondly, aren’t you (mistakenly) comparing telemarketers to criminals, who might also want to ‘feed their family’?

Now I know you’re a lawyer!

Is cold calling not being rude without necessity?

Don’t you think I have a legal right to waste my own time if I want?
it’s the telemarketers who are wasting my time that I object to.
They are also the ones tying up my phone line.

I accept that there are legal remedies in the US.
I haven’t hired a lawyer to find out what remedies are available on this side of the pond, nor have I spent time filling in forms (or whatever I legally have to do) and waiting to see if it works.
But why can’t I complain about harassment? Don’t we both live in a democratic societies? What happened to my rights of free speech?

I think you’re just touting for business (joke, honest). You want me to hire a legal colleague to deal with them, don’t you?

You describe companies phoning me as losing 1 point, without explaining your scale.
But when I treat them exactly the same way (taking up less than a minute’s worth of their precious, precious time), I’m ‘rude’ and ‘condescending’ and ‘irrationally nasty’?!
When they take my ‘rudeness’ as requiring an endless succession of return calls, then I’m the one ‘escalating the situation’?!!

Boy, you’re lucky I don’t ask what your ‘precious time’ is worth professionally (still joking).

Seriously, would you ever consider using a telemarketer to trawl for your legal business?
If you did, would you instruct them to always phone back, even if the caller was rude and hung up?
As a professional, how would you assess the effectiveness of this marketing strategy?

67

It must be effective, or else the telemarketing industry would go the way of the dodo.

68

But surely flipping burgers, whilst boring, didn’t involve being abused?

OK, I accept a minimum level of skill is required. You need to speak fluently. But you are still presumably working from a script, not explaining things in your own way.

Fair play for zombies!
But seriously, what sort of job requires you to say repeatedly “Don’t hang up yet”?!

I have organised a few events in my time and duly covered for no-shows. I think you exaggerate the work needed, and 4 star generals will also be complaining.
But that isn’t what telemarketing is about, is it? (Unless the job is so cr*p that people often duck out of coming to work…)

But surely endlessly using one telemarketing program is not acquiring computer skills? What about word processing, e-mails, databases and spreadsheets?
Don’t all schoolchildren have computer classes?

Fair enough. But can you name an equally well-paid job that you would turn down?
Obviously I’m trying to show that nobody would want to be a telemarketer (unless it was for the money).

Well I agree it is better to have a job than not.
But surely you should get out of telemarketing as soon as possible, and into a proper job.

Apparently so - look at Snoooopy’s attitude.

Well I hope they get a better job.
And it is peculiarly comforting to visualise a telemarketer being disturbed at home by their own industry.
Finally I think you mean ‘it’s just a boring job where you suffer abuse and would take anything else that paid as much’.

69

Ah, I meant would a law firm (or any other organisation) cold call customers for business, then call all over and over again the ones who hung up?

I agree that you can sell any old rubbish to some people by fast-talking them. (Only legal caution stops me giving examples!)
But surely you wouldn’t want a reputable brand-name to be associated with this marketing ploy.

70

Actually, it did. See the various “Customers are Assholes” threads. It’s a toss-up whether I hated my first job at McDonalds or the brief time I spent as a telemarketer more.

**

Granted. But occassional digression is needed, especially when a customer doesn’t understand something.

**

It is, and they do. The industry has a good-sized turnover rate, just as a lot of customer-service and retail industries do. Some people can take getting crapped on by customers with good natured aplomb, but others feel that constant abuse erodes their dignity to the extent where it’s either blow up, or leave the job. There’s a good deal of stress working with the public in any case, but telemarketers get the brunt of bad will.

Using a spreadsheet or database in a lot of jobs can also be repetative. But being able to say on a resume that one has any computer experience is better than none.

The skills taught by a telemarketing job may not be intensive, but they’re more than what jobs such as retail, or flipping burgers offer. A potential employer can see from experience as a telemarketer that the person is able to work under pressure, has experience dealing with hostile customers without losing their cool, and has at least learned to type swiftly, and can at least navigate a relatively simple computer program. This person can also bear a job with a repetative nature (which some folks can’t) can deal with boredom, and follows company protocall. While these are not skills which would benefit a highly-paid professional, they are valuable in the service industry sector, where jobs are not always stimulating.

I never did. There are still a lot of schools that don’t have computers yet. Heck, a lot of schools don’t even have typewriters.

**

I agree with you. Given the choice between two equally-paid jobs (unless it involved cleaning up filth, hard physical labor, or putting puppies to sleep) I would not opt to be a telemarketer.

**

Which I did, but I still would not say that telemarketing is not a “proper” job. It’s legal, in a clean and safe environment, reasonably well-paid, and is a job which people with a disability can do. My office even had a day care center on-site. No one can say that a telemarketer is not working hard for their paycheck.

You’re right. While telemarketing is not my first choice, I don’t look down on those who do it.

71

Ok, fair point.

Again, fair point. (I’ve never listened to a full spiel from a telemarketer).

If only they could reach customers another way!

This is impressive stuff.
Are you a employment consultant? (because that is an excellent summary and would certainly convince me on a CV.)

Seriously?
I’m pretty sure all UK schools have computers.

Well I never thought I would say this on a telemarketing thread - but you have made me reconsider my hostility.
I still don’t like them, and wish there was another way to do it, but:

congratulations - you certainly know how to make a case!

72

Nope. I work in a museum. (Finally found my dream job. I’m actually happy to get up and go to work in the morning.)

**

Here in the U.S we consider ourselves lucky if the text books post-date the Regan era. Computers are sometimes in wealthier school districts, but a lot of American schools have leaky roofs, which are a higher priority.

curtsies Sir, I do declare you’re makin’ me blush!

73

Special privileges typically cost extra. I don’t know why you think you should have them for free.

74

Again, we have to PAY for you to NOT do something to us? How’s that different from extortion? “We do it to everyone” is NOT an excuse.

75

If you have a phone number, and it’s publicly available, why shouldn’t any member of the public be able to dial it?

76

Being a former telemarketer, I resent that.

First off, commission isn’t really worth much, so it isn’t a big deal if we don’t sell anything all the time.

Since you didn’t tell them to take you off the list, they’ll just keep calling you.

For the most part, telemarketers who do outbound calls like it when they don’t have to take calls. So just walking away and leaving the phone sitting there for an hour is doing them a favor, they’re still getting paid. Thank you.

Also keep in mind that people who are telemarketers don’t do it because they like it, they do it because they need a job, and it’s something anyone can do. With the economy the way it is now, that’s why I was one. So fuck you.

77

“It’s legal” is not a valid defense for telemarketing. The fact remains that it’s immoral to rudely interrupt people’s leisure time with unsolicited, intrusive advertising.

With that said, I hope this thread ends up in the Pit so I can state my true opinion of amoral lowlives who waste my time for a few bucks.

78

People who rage against telemarketers are raging against the wrong people.

[hangs head]

In my previous job, which did research for newspapers, I would recommend to clients that they should call every household in their area every three months. I notice that one of the local papers to which I made this recommendation calls me every 3 months like clockwork!

It was me in my previous job (not now, please! :wink: ) that you should be pissed at. People like that are the ones doing this.

I should point out that newspapers that do call everyone every three months have higher % circulations than ones that don’t and the % difference is NOT trivial.

[/hangs head]

79

Actually, the only valid excuse for telemarketing is a fucking job. Just because I was one for a whopping 5 weeks, doesn’t mean I liked what I did. It meant that I live in rural Utah where there are ZERO jobs available, and telemarketing was the ONLY option I had that didn’t involve driving all the way to Salt Lake (which is a good 40 minute drive, and eats away at my gas bill), that paid well enough to be worth it. It’s so bad that the only other option is to move, which is exactly what I’m doing.

Does this mean I’m an advocate for telemarketing? Hell no, I hate every aspect of it. I’m just saying that sometimes people have no choice but to do the unsavory, which is usually temporary, which explains the high turnover rates. Nobody stays very long, for good reason.

Also, before getting irate at the actual telemarketers, get mad at the morons who ACTUALLY BUY SHIT OVER THE TELEPHONE. They’re the reason why telemarketing continues!

Look, I hate telemarketing as much as the next person. However, instead of lashing out at the people who need the work, get mad at the corporations responsible. The unfortunates who work the phones, 95% of time, desperately need the money and have few options.

80

What amazing ‘logic’. :rolleyes:

Is your number publically available?
What would you do if we set a computer to repeatedly auto-dial it?
(Perhaps then you would understand what telemarketing feels like…)

Also, you haven’t answered my previous questions:

Next you claimed (laughably) that telemarketing ‘requires sales skills’.
I listed some real sales skills then asked…

Go on, show us what ‘skills’ and ‘knowledge’ a telemarketer possesses.