If Telemarketing Types Have Your Number, Hang Up
Readers tell me that in dealing with telesalesmen (or women) I am stupid or at best naive.
By telesalesmen I mean those pests who call at the dinner hour to sell you anything from magazine subscriptions to stocks and bonds, or to elicit a charitable contribution.
As I have already reported, I was recently outraged by a home-remodeling salesmen who implied that my neighbors regarded my house as an eyesore, and, when told that I had recently remodeled, asked if I had the receipts to prove it. I told him it was none of his expletive business, and we both hung up.
Most readers say I should not have allowed myself to be drawn that deep into the conversation. I am too polite, however, to hang up without a word.
“I have found,” writes Lina Siefert of Topanga, “that the best way to deal with the phone solicitors is to say, politely, ‘I’m sorry. I do not respond to telephone solicitations,’ and simply hang up the phone.”
Simple enough. But I find it hard to hang up when solicited on behalf of crippled children, cancer research or whatever. The thing to do, I suppose, is to hang up when they say, “How are you today?” or “Are you the owner?”
Jack O’Hara of Bell Gardens has the answer to that last one. “I have learned to say, ‘No, I am just renting.’ This answer gets rid of 90% of the callers.”
Even worse than personal calls are recorded sales pitches. There isn’t even any satisfaction in hanging up. It is especially exasperating to set aside one’s drink or get up from the dinner table to answer the phone, only to find that one is listening to a machine.
Will Dwyer II, president of Private Lines Inc., points out that Congress has passed a law making recorded sales pitches and junk faxes illegal and allowing citizens to put their home numbers on a “don’t call me” list. The law becomes effective Dec. 20.
Fred Hack of Long Beach writes that he programs the numbers of recorded pitches into his automatic-recall speaker phone, then activates it at intervals and listens to the increasingly strident “hellos” at the other end.
“Most of these operations are minimum-wage sweatshops hawking dubious products or services,” Hack says. However, he adds, “With charities, I am unfailingly polite, and simply ask that they send me a certified copy of their latest financial statement for my review and consideration. None ever has. . . . Oddly enough, they don’t call back.”
A young woman wrote to say she works in an office with telemarketing securities brokers who “will stop at nothing to sell a deal. . . . Good guys seldom finish first in this business.”
She says they are guided by a bible that defines their “opponents” by type (the Yes Man, the Know It All, the Thinker, the Good-Natured Customer); by profession (airline pilots, bankers, bartenders), and even by ethnic groups (blacks, Latinos, Jews, Asians), with tips on how to deal with each.
“There is a script for every kind of person,” my informant says. “You fall into the Good-Natured category. This is where most of us fit in, due to our politeness and general concern for the welfare of others.”
The bible describes the Good-Natured Customer as polite, courteous and respectful. . . . “Treat him very courteously, with a lot of charm and some class. . . . Do not high pressure or push this customer. . . . He usually has the money to buy but will turn away from a high-pressure salesman. . . . Assume he is going to buy from you from the beginning, then treat the close as something quite normal. . . . This customer is a breath of fresh air to any closer. . . .”
I hope I’m not that good-natured.
William C. Kinard of Arcadia encloses a Wall Street Journal story about the employment of prison inmates in telemarketing in 16 states. One employer says he tries to avoid anyone convicted of fraud but otherwise doesn’t care what crimes they’ve committed. “If I’m sitting across from one guy who’s in there for tax evasion and one who murdered 15 people, I don’t want to deny either one the opportunity.”
Convicts serving longer sentences tend to make more devoted workers, the employer says. “They’re looking for something stable to hang onto in their lives.” Inmates are paid a 17.5% commission, the same as outsiders.
I called the state Department of Corrections to find out whether inmates here are employed in telemarketing, and the answer was no. Because of security concerns, it does not want to give convicts unlimited access to telephones.
Wouldn’t it be a thrill, though, to get a call from someone who said, “Hi! This is Charles Manson. How are you today?”
