Wednesday, July 06, 2005

The stealthy telemarketer

There are a lot of telemarketers out there who read from a script and you can tell they are only there for the paycheck.

I just had a call from one of the most stealthy of telemarketers. This girl had personality. She started out trying to befriend me, discussing the long weekend, talking hockey because I am Canadian. Not really introducing herself or her product until she got through that stage of befriending and offering a couple of free hats. Then she started in on her product (cleaning items for PCs). With the special pricing which has recently gone up but of course she had some of the product at the previous lower price. She also used a lot of the phrase, if you know our product works well for you, you'd come back to where you got them from, right? I said, "you're good, but I'm not interested". She then launched into how they have smaller packages for display units and those would be cheaper if I wanted to try them... this is where I hung up.

I'm sorry, I know it's rude to hang up on someone, but I know when I am on the phone with a salesperson who refuses to take no for an answer. She was not going to let me off the phone until I tried her special cleaning towel. I've already walked in the office and dealt with 2 big issues this morning and haven't even started my normal work of the day. I didn't have any more time to waste on this call.

It felt like it was going to be one of those calls that ended up with them telling you they'd send you product, despite your refusal, along with a bill. I've been through that one before, where stuff just shows up that you didn't agree to and they also bill you for it. An attempt to sell to a larger company who isn't paying attention to the odd $200 here or there. Sorry, I have a closer watch than that. I go over my own Visa bill with a fine tooth comb. Not going to make me pay for something I didn't ask for.

So I did hang up, which was a little rude, but I did say no I don't want your product. I also didn't slam the phone down, I just quitely pressed the switchhook. Now I can get on with my day.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

yap, telemarketers can be annoying at times. Next time ask for her home number and tell her you will CALL her when you're ready to buy.
When she says "no" keep pressing the issue... she'll get the picture.
I know she was just trying to earn a paycheck however. :-)

Shawn said...

Agreed. Just to throw my two cents in though, I find that the most annoying part of the conversation has to be right when you pick up the phone, say hello, and there's no one there as the computer they're dialing off of hasn't hooked them through yet. Then you continue to say hello (you can get at least another 4-5 in there!) until they start talking, at which time you suddenly realize you've wasted a good 5-6 hellos that you'll never get back. Are they ever going to get that "no-call" list on the go here? They were going to do that right?

Shawn

liz said...

Supposedly, but I never heard anything more of it. Not that it would work anyway.

I actually heard more recently that telemarketing was now passe, and was being done less & less. Except for my work phone, which seems to draw anyone and everyone doing a survey for this or that.

Cyn said...

Havin' done outbound sales I say ya did the right thing. I know myself I would just yak until I wore people down and eventually they were agreeing to buy. I would talk until they hung up. "No" means nothing to the top of the top on an outbound sales floor.

Dre said...

I don't get too many telemarketing calls anymore, thankfully. But when I do get them I usually just cut them off pretty early on with "I'm not interested. Please remove me from your calling list. Thank you." and then I hang up. I try to be polite about it but it's so intrusive that it can be hard to be nice sometimes.

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, the telemarketer. I've learned a good response is, "No Thank You" to every question they ask. They either realize I'm not going to buy or get annoyed at my politeness and hang up ;)