Unsolicited calls.

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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:41 pm

NOTHING to do with baiting at all.
" Hello, is that the man of the house?" But don't just reject it as tele sales. You have to spread good in the world. Ask if they are on commission. If so leave politely ASAP. If not, you have some options to maximise their wages for nothing. A gentle probe and some thought will enable best methods, and ensure they are paid for their work with minimal effort. Enjoy the chat!

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

Any suggestions about unsolicited posts?

Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:53 pm

Began Steele wrote:

you have some options to maximise their wages

Why would I want to do that? I mean I payed attention at school so I have found a decent job which doesn't involve disturbing other people. None of them helped me achieving that.

Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 9:20 pm

If you live in the UK...3 little words...Telephone Preference Service...works wonders.

Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 10:50 pm

I'll beat your 3 words. Ex directory. The only people that ever call me are people I want to call me. I've had maybe a half dozen callers in 10 years.

Master Baiter Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 143

I ask them to hold on a moment, put the phone down, and go back to what I was doing. If they are still on after a few minutes, I ask them to hold just a bit longer................

Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 11:41 pm

I've been extremely polite to them. I asked them to hold on while I get the person the want to speak to. After about 15 minutes on hold I check back, and if they are still there I ask them to hold some more. I've managed about 45 minutes on one. He even called back later for another wait.

419Eater is my life Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 476

Apparently here in Australia, alot of telemarketers call around dinnertime. My family has a traditional dinner around the table and we put our answering machine on. I mean if its really important people will call back.

Hence around that hotzone for telemarketers, we usually arent answering the phone. I dont know about other countries but that eliminates alot of calls.

The few that get through (by ringing at other times) I usually let them give me thier drivel, then ask to put the supervisor on, then insult him till he hangs up. Why should the supervisor get paid more and harrased less?

Yeah, I know, most telemarketers are single mums, or uni students, or whatever making a living. But they lost my sympathy the moment they chose to harras me in my own home.

Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:06 am

In a couple of months, Australia is setting up a "do not call" register, where it is an offence for telemarketers, etc to call any number registered on the list. And they get big fines if they do...

Can't wait until it's up and running!

Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 3:52 am

Thank God! At last! I have the misfortune to be the name on our phone bill so I'm the one who gets the calls. And yes, it's always around 6pm from a call centre in Mumbai. I do kinda feel sorry for these peons who earn a pittance for hassling people to buy a new mobile phone plan or to tell me I've won a fantastic holiday but I usually just hang up I'm afraid.

Can anyone here with a sales background please tell me how effective cold calling actually is? What percentage of people actually say "yes please" and is that one acceptance worth the hundreds of people who tell you to p*ss off?

Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 4:30 am

I always politely say it's a bad time, but if they give me their home number I'll call them back when it's better.

Not one number so far. Funny that........

I also used to get alot of calls from stock churners in Singapore, I used to ask them for their tax returns for the last 5 years and if they have made better returns than me I'd consider it. I got that one from a Warren Buffett book (I think). Same response.

Master Baiter Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 123 Location: UK

If you are in the UK the TPS is an absolute lifesaver - plus it is SO satisfying to hear the caller panic and backtrack as soon as you mention that you are on the list - the company gets around a �3000 fine for each breach of the agreement! You can also enter your physical address or mobile number for letters or texts.

I once worked for a call centre who stated that they did NOT cold call. When I started I found out that anyone who had so much as not ticked a tiny box at the bottom of a questionnaire from the company's sister of a sister of an aunts company, regardless of what the questionnaires subject was, constituted acceptance to be called.

That was one of the WORST jobs I've ever had! I can't sell to save my life!

It was the consolidating your debts thing. Most calls were made on weeknights, around Eastenders/Corrie time, and the wonderful computer system didn't show whether it was Mr or Mrs Smith I was calling. If you call someone and ask "Is Mr or Mrs Smith available?", you get sussed as a sales call straight away.

Then there was the godawful sales patter, where we were actually advised to make the customer seem stupid if they tried to say No. If you didn't get through, you had to reschedule for one hour. After that, six, then twelve, then twenty four hours. If the person went mental at you and wanted to be removed from your lists permanently, the most you could do was reschedule for three months time!!

The only exception was if someone was on the TPS. Then a manager was able to remove them from the list. No cold calling my backside...

Baiting Guru Joined: 17 Sep 2006 Posts: 5905

^^^^^

Never worked in a call centre but it sounds like hell. If I had the choice of 2 jobs cold calling or cleaning pub toilets with a toothbrush I wouldn't hesitate in taking the latter.

Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 11:51 am

i had a right good chat once with a guy who worked for my mobile phone provider, he was stuck all day in a callcentre at what sounded like the Scottish equivalent of Craggy Island.

As I'm a good listener, and let him sound off about how crap his job was, he ended up upgrading me from my craptastic bottom of the range basic mobile to the latest all singing all dancing video/radio/MP3 mobile at no extra cost, waiving the extortionate 'upgrade fee'.

Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:56 pm

I am ex-directory and still get unwanted calls. Some companies have machines runing through all numbers and they are often 'silent calls' as they only get handled if there is someone free at the call centre to pick it up. Sometimes it only rings two or three times, so I got an answerphone to deal with that nuisance, and now they pay for every call at least.

Some companies have been fined for this practice, but it is a paltry amount.

Often when you buy a pc or ask for a service they ask for a phone number. I use a redirect service for baiting and the benefit of that is that it is extra expensive for incoming calls and I can use it in combination with my answerphone or mobile, whichever I choose. From now on, if people ask for my number for no good reason, that's the one they'll get.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 21 Jan 2007 Posts: 19

My favorite thing to do was to give my two year old the phone to play with whenever I got a phone call from them. I'd wait about 15 minutes or when he got tired of playing with the phone and then hang it up.
Another time, my DH was on the phone with one of them acting as though he was in the middle of masterbating himself. He said the guy would hesitate a few times during his "moans" before he hung up. Other times, my DH would act like a total retard on the phone. As mean as it was, it was funny as hell to do!

Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 7:07 pm

Ima_Hogg wrote:

... my DH...

Darling husband? Decision height?

I put them on speaker phone and bait at the same time. There are times when I get into a real roll, typing away and they can hear it and they pause. If they are doing some market survey, its fun to open up a browser and Google their topics. I answer all their questions while still baiting away.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 21 Jan 2007 Posts: 19

Sorry, I forget not everybody knows what DH is. DH is Dear Husband. Very Happy

Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 9:25 pm

Don�t know if this has been mentioned before, but here you can find a counterscript for telemarketers Wink

http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html Laughing

Not quite a Newb Joined: 02 Nov 2006 Posts: 24

Well I worked for about a month as a telemarketer for a company that sold windows (for your house, not for your computer) a couple of summers ago. Basically it was surprising how many people were much nicer than I had though, usually people would just say "I'm not interested" politely and hang up, the problem with this is that then we'd just put them on the "call them back tomorrow" list, the only way to reliably get telemarketers not to call you is to say "Please take me off of your list" then they legally have to or else they face stiff fines (as mentioned above) The most shocking thing I found was just how few people could speak English (in New England) and we know that they weren't just pretending that they could only speak Spanish because I worked with a guy who could speak Spanish and he would if they claimed to not be able to speak English, usually they really couldn't. It was at least 50% of the population in urban areas that could speak little to no english. Crying or Very sad

Not quite a Newb Joined: 21 Feb 2006 Posts: 63

I worked one summer as a telemarketer. I wouldn't go back, but it beats starving.

The people to get pissed at are the jackass companies that do very little work on their records.. if you don't call people who want it, you won't get any results, and you'll just make life hell for everyone.

I think the all-time low for a bad record was a lift.

Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:36 pm

One word.... soundboards!

Basically type the name of an actor/film + soundboard in google and a board of a whole lotta catchphrases from that film/person will show up.

Choose your phrases and you'll be content for ages as they reply to them... especially if they dont recognise who the actor is. Arnie is fantastic!