Telemarketers -Tip, Tricks, and Revenge

[Steve]

I don't have a direct response to anyone or anything in the recent
telemarketer thread, but I do have a couple of small comments.

Symapathy for the Devil-

The people who run telemarketing services are brutally strict in the
way they run their operation. The telemarketers themselves, rather
than the people who run the organization, are treated like slaves. You
are allowed a precise amount of time for each caller, and you have to
make an impossibly large number of calls per day. Plus, you are given
a script, and are not allowed to deviate from it under any
circumstances under penalty of unemployment. Even if a legitimately
interested customer asks a simple question, you can not answer it,
unless you can take the answer as a direct quote from the script. All
other questions are to be avoided even if it cost you a sale.

I had a friend who was desparate for a job so he work in telemarketing
briefly and said it was the most oppressive stifling irrational
environment he has ever work in.


Revenge, Sweet Revenge-

One night a telemarketer called during a TV program I was interested
in, so I just left the line open, set the phone down on the sofa,
turned up the TV and continued watching. I left the phone this way for
about 15 to 20 minutes then hung it up.

You have to understand that with most phone systems, if the person
being called doesn't hang up, the phone line stays open indefinitely.
Even if the person making the call hangs up, as long as I didn't hang
up, the connection to me will remain open and prevent the caller from
making any more calls.

He was not a happy camper.

After I thought about it, I felt kind of bad because I probably make
him fall 10 calls short of his quota that night, which would have
gotten him in trouble with his boss. And it's his boss who is the real
jerk, not the telemarketer himself.


The Clue-

Here is how I avoid most telemarketing calls. When a telemarketer
calls there is frequently a short pause sometime accompanied by a
clicking sound. This is the automatic dialing system switching your
call over to the next available customer service representative. So if
the person calling me doesn't start talking instantly after I say
'Hello', I hang up. If it was someone I know who wanted to talk to me
but was distracted for a second or two, they will have heard my voice
and will call me back immediately. If it was a computerize automated
call, the customer service representive will assume it was a bad
number and wait for the computer to switch the next call over to him/her.

Just a few thoughts.

bboy_mn