Over the years, I’m sure we have all received many telemarketing phone calls… most are very annoying.
I’ve gotten ‘congratulations! you have won a mobile phone’, or:
‘we can reduce your business mobile phone call costs’ (I like this one: as soon as they ask how much do I spend, I say ‘about $100 per annum’. At this point I get a nervous laugh, or a few seconds of silence, then the obvious reply: I don’t think we can help you.
I also get:
‘we can reduce your mortgage’ (I don’t have one)
‘a great way to build wealth by investing in property’ (I prefer shares… much more flexible).
Anyway, you get the picture.
I would usually do 1 of 2 things:
- I’d listen until I could get a word in, and I’d say no thanks, I’m not interested (I suspect many of you would just say ‘F*** Off’ and then hang up).
- If I had nothing better to do, then I’d just let them waffle for as long as they liked. I’d be non-committal until they asked for a positive commitment, then I’d say ‘I don’t think so’ etc until they said ‘goodbye’
After a while, I started to notice a pattern:
The ones that use large (probably Indian) call centres… also known as cubicle farms… would usually go like this:
- Ringgg
- Me: Hello?
- 3 – 6 seconds of silence, then
- Caller: Hello?
- Me: yes, hello? (I’m already starting to get annoyed at this stage!)
Now, the initial few seconds of silence is the best giveaway, that this is a spam phone call (a spacall? a scall?).
I started thinking: most people I know will just hangup, or just say something and then hangup.
Now: these call centres need to make a profit in order to survive. To make a profit, they need to sell a product. To sell a product in such an annoying way, they need to make LOTS of calls.
So what is the best way to stop them?
Slow them down!
Stop them from making 6 or 10 phone calls per minute (when most people immediately hang up)
How do I do that without wasting my time talking to them for a few minutes? Well, here is what I do now:
- Ringgg
- Me: Hello?
- 3 – 6 seconds of silence, then
- Caller: Hello?
- Me: (after a deliberete 6 second pause) yes, hello?
- Caller: Er, ello, is this Mr Martin?
- M: Yes.
- C: Good day to you. I be calling from xyz and you have won …
- M: I let him waffle for a bit, until he asks me a question (If he waffles too much, I just interrupt)
- M: excuse me, but could you please hold on for a minute?
- C: Umm, yes, sure.
- M: I put the phone down and walk away (I don’t hang up)
- I check the phone 10 or 20 minutes later (wow, they hung up! How rude! 😉
Now, the caller has to decide how long to hold for, before hanging up.
The upshot is:
- He wastes a lot of his precious time staring into space, waiting for me to return.
- While he is waiting, he cannot annoy someone else
- These people (and the call centres in general) are under a LOT of pressure to make as many calls, and as many sales, as possible… If everyone did what I did (or even deliberately string them along for as long as possible), then the call centre might not be financially viable anymore.
So I implore you: PLEASE don’t hang up on these marketing calls!!!
Just tell them to hold on. If everyone did this, I reckon we could banish most of these calls (but it will only work if everyone does it).
I’m even prepared to start a website that promotes practical tips on ‘annoying the annoyers’ (If there is enough interest from YOU… so just give me a feedback comment, to indicate your support).
Just don’t leave a comment with more that 1 url in it… it will disappear into the spam bucket!