Dealing with telemarketers

[Gandalf]

Having worked as a telemarketer, I tend to just politely state that I'm not interested, and then I wish them well on their shift.

[Edi]

I don't get too many calls from telemarketers, mainly because I use my workphone and my personal phone (which is the one on their lists) is on maybe 3 times a year for 5 minutes at a time.

The ones I do get, I inform them flat out I'm not interested and Finnish telemarketing companies are smart enough about these things these days that they do not get overly pushy unless the caller is fucking stupid.

I dealt with one a few years ago that was calling on behalf of my own employer. He called my ex's number, but since all the internet stuff was in my name, I spoke with him. The asshole just would not take no for an answer for anything, which resulted in me actually yelling at him and then hanging up. The first thing I did when I got to work the next day was report his ass in great detail and inform his superior exactly what I thought of his behavior, and even that was a censored version of my real opinion. I would be surprised if he is still working for the company, since he was exactly the kind of guy that his targets will talk about to 20 different people and not in a good way. In a closed language pool as small as this country is, word gets around fast, so that sort of shit gets weeded out from the respectable outfits pretty quickly.

I believe my feedback was something on the order of "If I was not already an employee of the company and know how shit actually works, I would have terminated all contracts and transferred them over to a competitor and urged everyone I know to do the same. Instead, I recommend dealing appropriately with Mr. Asshole."

For most of the rest that don't get the point, I just hang up.

[The_Saint]

The best telemarketing call in Aus I've heard of was for an Optus caller to my Dad's work phone saying how they could provide cheaper phone calls. They got terribly upset when Dad suggested that that meant they they would have to pay him to make phone calls... the rib was that Dad worked for Telstra at the time and it was a company phone (For the non-Aus, Optus was the #2 national telco and Telstra is the #1).


I generally just hang up. With a pending change to the house phone (we're getting rid of it) I don't expect to get any more telemarketing.


Related, I usually humour the "you've got a virus on your microsoft windows computer" callers (if I have time) because I like to spin them along until they tell me what website they want me to go visit or what damage they want me to do to my own computer. I'm pretty sure on one call I got the caller so frustrated I heard breaking glass in the background (along with swearing in the foreground).

[mr friendly guy]

They called me again. I asked whether they had previous called again because it sounds strangely suspicious like all the other ones (do they use the same standard play book or something). She denied it and I asked to speak to the manager to take my name off the call list. I had already registered on the website linked earlier for the do not call register, but apparently they have 30 days to get the list off. She quickly said she would do it herself without bothering the manager and hung up when I asked "are you sure you don't need the manager."

Any further calls will result in trolling on my part.

[PREDATOR490]

Does randomly getting called about a car accident when you do not even have a car count ?

It is one thing to call someone trying to sell them something but I find it even more absurdly annoying to have some random person decide to call me repeatedly over the day until I actually answer with shit that is completely irrelevant.
Bonus points for annoyance when you tell them X does not apply to me and they start getting pushy.

I am sorry that I do not own a car and did not get in a car accident, clearly it is my fault for not meeting your target audience ?

[Borgholio]

I am sorry that I do not own a car and did not get in a car accident, clearly it is my fault for not meeting your target audience ?

My favorites are the ones calling to sell me solar panels and then get all bitchy and think we're lying when they ask how much we spend on electricity and we tell them, "nothing". (We already have solar).

[Lagmonster]

Technology has made it a bit easier to deal with telemarketers, provided you're sufficiently motivated and/or antisocial.

In my case, you can buy devices that have the ability to filter out numbers not on a programmed whitelist. So people you pre-approve get to ring you, and all other calls are sent directly to voicemail without disturbing you.

[dragon]

What I hate is that I did the do not call registry and they still call. Lucky they only call the home phone so far and anyone that needs me for real calls my cell so I unplug the land line unless I need it.. Granted only going to be a matter of time before I get those on my cell as well.

[General Zod]

Technology has made it a bit easier to deal with telemarketers, provided you're sufficiently motivated and/or antisocial.

In my case, you can buy devices that have the ability to filter out numbers not on a programmed whitelist. So people you pre-approve get to ring you, and all other calls are sent directly to voicemail without disturbing you.

Unfortunately not an option for me when I'm doing background work. I need to get calls and respond to numbers I don't know immediately or I risk losing out on jobs.

[JI_Joe84]

Hi. My name is Raw Shark, and I have extensive experience as a telemarketer.

So, the first thing you need to remember with these guys is that they probably have rules that they need to rigidly follow. These rules may be utterly idiotic and / or include a very specific script. For example, at one place that I worked, we were not allowed to take somebody off the calling list without a manager speaking with them to verify it first, but every time I tried in good faith to explain that and get the client to hold for the manager, they would scream something like, "Just fucking do it!" And hang up. So, one of us, possibly me, would be queued to call them back automatically by the computer. At another place, I literally had no ability to hang up. I had to keep trying to pitch the client until they hung up, no matter what. I had one guy yell at me for like fifteen minutes one time while I kept trying to pitch him. About five minutes in, I noticed that the entire observation booth was looking at me with their headphones on and laughing their asses off.

Now, if they're just flat-out lying, there's nothing you can do about that except call them out on it or hang up, though claiming to only be interested in hearing a sales pitch might actually work.

This is exactly the way it is. There was a script (I was told for legal reasons) we had to follow exactly to the letter. I could jump to different points within the script but we had to get through ever bit of it.
I am learning these days that customer service is not just showing a customer where a thing they want is. Customer service is a art form, some of the old hands could take (it seems like) any customer in any situation and end with them walking out with arms full of stuff(mostly things they didn't know they needed) and smiles all around, like they actually thought we were all friend's now and the store was like family to them. I still don't get it. And I've been in retail for years.

[Purple]

Customer support on the other hand seems to be the art of informing the customer that he will in fact not be helped in a passive aggressive way that's just indirect enough to insult their intelligence.

[Edi]

I am learning these days that customer service is not just showing a customer where a thing they want is. Customer service is a art form, some of the old hands could take (it seems like) any customer in any situation and end with them walking out with arms full of stuff(mostly things they didn't know they needed) and smiles all around, like they actually thought we were all friend's now and the store was like family to them. I still don't get it. And I've been in retail for years.

Yes, it is an art form. The trick to that is that you have to do a few things:
1) Show actual interest in the customer, beyond just as a walking ATM for the company
2) You need to sound out what they actually need and map out if whatever it is that you are selling is a solution to one of those needs. So you must identify all the things that are problem points and that they do NOT ask anything about.
3) You must never bullshit the customer. You do that once, you lose them forever. You actually find a solution to their problems, they will come back and buy more stuff from you.

Customer support on the other hand seems to be the art of informing the customer that he will in fact not be helped in a passive aggressive way that's just indirect enough to insult their intelligence.

Only in places that have no fucking idea of what they are doing.

[Purple]

Only in places that have no fucking idea of what they are doing.

Skype technical support? They kept referring me to an automated form. And the narrative they had was "If the automated form does not help you try again. We can't do anything for you." But they newer said it outright. Instead the customer support people refused to even write like human beings. Instead they kept responding in what effectively is chatbot language. By that I mean responses that look like they were cooked up by the legal department and copy pasted.

[Adam Reynolds]

Customer support on the other hand seems to be the art of informing the customer that he will in fact not be helped in a passive aggressive way that's just indirect enough to insult their intelligence.

Only in places that have no fucking idea of what they are doing.

It's actually not so much that they have no idea what they are doing and more that they are in a position in which their either have a natural monopoly(like the various infamous cable companies) or their product is essentially free in some fashion and they have less incentive to keep you as a customer(like the preceding Skype example).

If your company is selling a proper product with substitutes, then they have a strong incentive to keep their customers around. That means quality customer service.

[Edi]

Customer support on the other hand seems to be the art of informing the customer that he will in fact not be helped in a passive aggressive way that's just indirect enough to insult their intelligence.

Only in places that have no fucking idea of what they are doing.

It's actually not so much that they have no idea what they are doing and more that they are in a position in which their either have a natural monopoly(like the various infamous cable companies) or their product is essentially free in some fashion and they have less incentive to keep you as a customer(like the preceding Skype example).

If your company is selling a proper product with substitutes, then they have a strong incentive to keep their customers around. That means quality customer service.

Of course. The way the cable companies in the US do customer service, anybody tries that here and they will get stomped flat by everyone and their dog, cat and rabid deer. Regulators, consumer protection authorities, unions, and customers, it would be such a shitstorm that the company would soon be out of business.

My company does customer service by the numbers and it's way different now (for the better) than it was when I was hired nine years ago. We even do support for other companies' products on a premium line. Basically, if it's IT-related, we don't care who you are, what stuff you have, where you got it from or whose services you use, if you have a problem, we'll help you fix it as long as it does not involve breaking the law and you pay us for it.

It can get pretty exotic sometimes.

[JamesStaley]

Simple. Get Caller ID and don't answer the telephone of anyone who refuses to get their name. If someone calls me that I don't know or won't identify themselves, I just don't answer the phone. Works 100% of the time!

[Raw Shark]

Simple. Get Caller ID and don't answer the telephone of anyone who refuses to get their name. If someone calls me that I don't know or won't identify themselves, I just don't answer the phone. Works 100% of the time!

That would be great for me, except that my parents are old and refuse to unblock their number, on the assumption that I should just know it's them when they call me because reasons.

[His Divine Shadow]

Initially when telemarketers called I used to be polite and sometimes (rarely) I do buy stuff from them, so they aren't 100% nuisance.

Nobody should ever buy anything from a telemarketer, that just encourages them.

I have been called up by telemarketers of say phone companies and for that single call I have said I will boycott their entire company for life. And I am. I am currently using the subscription of a company that has never given me a call and it's probably not the cheapest, but over my dead fucking body I'll pay a stupid fucking shit ass company that does telemarketing. And if they ever call me I'll find a new phone company.

Eventually there might not be any companies left that don't do this despicable practice and in that case I might have to bite the sour apple but there are two companies left I can remember not having called me.

I also switched several insurances over a telemarketing phone call because my current company called me and tried to sell me shit, away from the callers company.

I don't get a lot of calls, I think my legendary hatred must have spread in the call centers and I am listed as "don't bother" or "thar be dragons".

[bilateralrope]

Simple. Get Caller ID and don't answer the telephone of anyone who refuses to get their name. If someone calls me that I don't know or won't identify themselves, I just don't answer the phone. Works 100% of the time!

Unless you have a government agency who, due to privacy reasons, will not say who they are until they know who is on the phone. For example, Work and Income New Zealand. If you're on an unemployment benefit, any call from them is an important call. But they will not say who they are until they know that the person who answered is the person they are looking for. They view letting anyone else know that they are calling you as an invasion of your privacy.

[Edi]

Initially when telemarketers called I used to be polite and sometimes (rarely) I do buy stuff from them, so they aren't 100% nuisance.

Nobody should ever buy anything from a telemarketer, that just encourages them.

I have been called up by telemarketers of say phone companies and for that single call I have said I will boycott their entire company for life. And I am. I am currently using the subscription of a company that has never given me a call and it's probably not the cheapest, but over my dead fucking body I'll pay a stupid fucking shit ass company that does telemarketing. And if they ever call me I'll find a new phone company.

Eventually there might not be any companies left that don't do this despicable practice and in that case I might have to bite the sour apple but there are two companies left I can remember not having called me.

I also switched several insurances over a telemarketing phone call because my current company called me and tried to sell me shit, away from the callers company.

I don't get a lot of calls, I think my legendary hatred must have spread in the call centers and I am listed as "don't bother" or "thar be dragons".

Some of the phone companies have subscriptions that have a marketing ban on them. Usually a euro or two per month more expensive, but that means no emails, SMS campaigns or IIRC telemarketing calls either.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Simple. Get Caller ID and don't answer the telephone of anyone who refuses to get their name. If someone calls me that I don't know or won't identify themselves, I just don't answer the phone. Works 100% of the time!

That would be great for me, except that my parents are old and refuse to unblock their number, on the assumption that I should just know it's them when they call me because reasons.

Both my mom and I have caller ID now. It took a great deal of convincing on my part(she's 82 now), but the key selling point was her being able to know which calls were coming from my crazy-ass sister, so Mom could avoid talking to her.

As for telemarketing, one of the main offenders is the life insurance industry. We have to make our own cold calls(yes, every life insurance company, especially AIL, claims no cold calling, but they lie)per script(s), and you would get blamed if the customer refused to even talk to you. The only two ways to take a lead off the list were to mark him as a "Not Intererested(which worked 25% of the time)" or as "Medically Uninsurable(100% of the time)."

And, again, *60 is your friend.

[LadyTevar]

The job I'm in now is telesurveys, which is NOT Telemarketing, but "Customer Satisfaction Surveys", following up on a phone call to one of many 800 numbers owned by a certain insurance/financial company. As such, they are NOT covered under the US National "Do Not Call" list.
Which means at least once per work day I get asked why they're being called when they're on a do not call. If you call the 800 number, the company is allowed to call you back.

So, I get to call people up and ask what they thought of the automatic voice response system, what did they think of the Customer Service Rep, would they consider using a website to get answers, would they buy other products from the company, etc. And with each interview taking anywhere from 5-10min depending on how they answer, people get testy.

We have a mix of blind-dialing and straight dialing (I prefer the straight-dial), but I have a script I have to read verbatum before I can ask "Is this a good time?" As long as they don't say "Remove me/my number from this list", I will most likely have to call back the next day, when that number pops up again in the data sample. Some samples are small enough I'll call the same number twice a day (unless I recognize the number and hit "skip sample" for the day.)

[mr friendly guy]

I really don't have a problem with surveys asking about satisfaction because they will only ask if you actually paid purchased something and I am willing to give feedback unless they get me at a inopportune time.