The whole non-speaking english subject is...just that...a whole different subject..so lets keep the thread headed in the correct direction.

It would be stupid for a telemarketing company to send out cards asking if people WANT their calls...

A. They don't get the card back
B. They get them back with no
C. They get one back saying yes.

Nobody will say "Yes I want your phone calls"...thats commiting business suicide.

This isn't directed at anyone here, but I can't stand how people only look at one side of the situation. Whenever I have a customer service issue, many times the customer just doesn't understand that a business can't run the way they think it should simply because they don't know anything about business. Lots of times, customers are dissappointed with a businesses service because the company didn't do something the way they wished or think they should. Little do they know that most of the time it's because it isn't feasible for a business to do what they wish, and most of the time you can't be honest with them and tell them the real reason (usually cost issues). You've gotta make up a reason so you don't sit there all day explaining business to the customer.


Our company has a voicemail setup, so people can leave messages and have us call them back. We also have the caller id so when people just call and hang up...we call them back anyway. You'll get 1-2 out of a couple hundred that didn't like us calling back...we get too many sales out of returning the call IDers to not do it. But there are times when I start to say "this is Justin with (whatever product they called for), i was returning a call we recieved from this number earlier" and then they get ticked thinking I'm a telemarketer, even though I just said "i'm returning a call we recieved"...sometimes they say something and I'll try to explain quickly...but they hang up rudely and I'll just call right back...most of the time they don't answer the 2nd time and I leave them a polite message on their answering machine clearly explaining who i am and why I'm calling. I do it in hopes that they realised their mistake

And if you hate telemarketing (I don't like it either)...thats fine...most people don't like it, but it has nothing to do with the phone operators. Be mad at the owner and it's affiliates...not the little guy/gal on the other end of the phone. If they are being pushy or seem out of line, it's because they're boss is telling them to be that way...believe it or not it brings up sales to be pushy. A problem is that a lot of salesman don't know how to be pushy without making the customer angry/upset/disgruntled. Just be polite and kind...you will make it a lot easier on the phone rep...and to be honest...whatever you say to just the phone rep will have no impact on the business.

 

If a man comes up to a car with a sign asking for money, he is scorned. If the same man cleans himself up and becomes a telemarketer, he is still scorned....... go figure. If I was out of work, couldn't find a job and had a family to feed, would I take a job that required me to call you at dinner time? I doubt if the telemarketer LIKES his job, he is probably just someone trying to make a living. I also don't like receiving the calls, but I decline firmly and politely, and try not judge the caller's motives.
Dono

 

So let me get this straight. As long as you're making a living, it's ok for you to bother me and invade my privacy? Has it occured to telemarketers that I am not PAYING for a phone line for them to run advertising on? It's a private line, if you want to run ads on it, you should pay. Magazines, newspapers, TV stations and billboard owners make you pay to use their medium. And now, it gets better, telemarketers are calling me on my cell phone. Not only do I pay a monthly fee to "provide" telemarketers with another (free) advertising medium but I also get billed PER CALL for calls I don't want.

 

If I'm in the mood I'll turn it into a 1-900 type of call. My wife just dies laughing when I ask the caller (male or female) what there wearing and if they can guess what I'm doing...... If they stay on the line I just let it go down hill from there, the depths of my depravity are frightening. If they won't let me cut in I'll just pant into the reciever. I'll probably have to stop when the kids start to get curious. What is scary are the people that STAY ON THE LINE. I'm afraid those weirdos will take my number home and call me after hours.

If they don't want to listen to it they are free to hang up at any time. My house, my phone, my entertainment.

 

Ever tried making out with a hot chick in the backseat and have a cop shine the light in your business?

 

That doesn't make any sense. If you are "making out" to such a degree that it warrants police intervention then you would be comparing sitting in the privacy of your own home, which isn't a crime, to public lewdness, which is a Class A misdemeanor (in Texas). As a public servant and guardian of the piece, a police officer has the right (and duty) to investigate activities that take place in a public venue. Your house is not such a venue, you don't have to open the door and let him in without a warrant. And no, a cop has never shone a light while I was "making out" in the backseat with my wife because 1st, I have always had a regular cab truck with no back seat , and 2nd, I wouldn't tempt fate with the commission of lascivious acts in public. (If your definition of making out goes further than kissing, which mine obviously does. ) Anyway, you know that any activity at unreasonable hours of the night or suspicious and inappropriate behavior will eicite Police-type company which cannot be (logically) compared to sitting at home. Come on now, you know very well that you have to take the hot chicks back to your place for greater freedom in the range of extracuricular activities. (Such as taking pictures while... nevermind.) What was the question again? Where's the Tylenol...

 

Hah! I do this all the time! Old fliers, newspaper pages, other credit card company ads.. it's alot of fun. It wastes their money.

 

Not to mention the embarrassment of explaining to your next date how you got toe nail scraping in the headliner of you car.

 

The voice of experience, I see.

 

I agree with you 100%...my point was to be mad at the telemarketing company, not the phone rep.

 

Ever since the "Do Not Call Registry" that the government came out with. My family haven't gotten one single call since. And that has been about 5 or 6 months now.

Keep on with the stories!!!!

 

Actually, my wife was telling me that where she came from in Canada it was illegal to send junk mail through the postal service. If you wanted junk mail, you called and got your name on a list and it would be delivered to your door all organized in a little bag once a week. She said she got junk mail.

I have a hard time believing your average telemarketer is some unfortunate person that wears their heart out on their sleeve and has a boss yelling at them, like a sweatshop from the 1890's. Maybe the first day of work, but really, could anyone work at that more than a day and not realize what the job's like? The Infantryman on the front line doesn't set policies either, but they still have to dodge the bullets.

Someone makes thousands of calls a week to people that hate them, just so a small percentage of positive calls can make the boss happy, so he'll give them minimum wage. They can handle hang-ups, rudeness, threats, run arounds...the works. If they really didn't like it they could cuss at the boss, go home, grab a phonebook and start making a couple thousand calls to businesses, looking for work. All they would need is one sale. I've done hard sell and you think it's hard to get a job, check out the unemployment history of Oregon.

The phone company was calling me repeatedly for a while there, trying to save me money by increasing my bill. I was joking around with one of the ladies and told her I wanted a telemarketing block. She got all excited and said they had it, for one dollar a month! I told her if I had that, I would never had the chance to talk to her. She said the phone company wasn't included in the block... Told her no thanks, at the moment they were the ones bugging me. She took me off their list and I was very polite and respectful.

Order centers are different. People call actually wanting a product and if someones grouchy, it's from frustation - not anger. That would be a tough job, but it's legit. Hopefully, they hire a lot of ex-telemarketers.

 

I do that also and time to see how long they will stay on the line. The winner was at 50 min.

 

i have my own po box and i get credit card offers in the mail and bills and crap that ive never bought (im 15) i dont know how i get htis crap

 

I'm not horribly rude to them, I just tell them "Thanks for calling, but I'm not interested," and hang up. It doesn't matter what they're selling, I don't even ask, and I don't give them an opportunity to keep the call going. I just thank them and hang up.

Maybe that *is* rude, but I don't want to waste my time or theirs, they have a lot of phone calls to make. That "Do Not Call" registry works like a charm, I rarely get any calls any more.