N ow whenever a telemarketer calls you are going to lose out on the deal, anytime you spend talking to them is wasted and if you are in a situation where a telemarketer could offer value to you then it is a very rare one indeed.
Plus calls from telemarketers are plain annoying and generally entirely unwanted.
So years ago I worked out a great way so that whenever a telemarketer rings I know that it’s one and can deal with it appropriately.
See you are able to tell it’s a telemarketer generally by how the speak or talk on the phone, likely they will ask to speak to whoever is in charge of your phone or electricity accounts.
Or even if you miss them when you first answer you are able to tell that’s it’s a marketing call as soon as they start pitching a product.
We all know the frustration!
So here is the best way to deal with them.
If the ask to speak to someone in charge of the phone accounts you tell them that they need to speak to “Fred”. When they ask if Fred is available tell them no, he could be away to anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.
Also if you recognise that it’s a marketing call and they have already started to pitch there product then just stop them mid sentence and let them know that its “Fred” that they should be speaking to as he is in charge of everything relating to the product they are trying to sell.
So what does this achieve? Well when you tell them that they should be speaking to “Fred” they update there CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to reflect that next time they call they should ask for “Fred”. They do this to make it sound as if they know the person they are trying to speak to, but what it does is it now tips you off that it’s a marketing call straight away.
See “Fred” should not be anyone who works in your company or you live with. It should be a completely made up and fictional name so that as soon as anyone asks to speak to this person you know immediately it is a marketing call.
At which point its easy to inform them that “Fred” is away on holiday, has the day off, is with his wife etc etc. You can start to have a bit of fun with the excuses you use, my personal favourite is that “Fred” is away for two weeks to compete in the Body Surfing championships in Hawaii and that everyone in the office is really hoping he wins !
Maybe this is the Fred they are after ?
Also if they ever ask if someone else can deal with the issue insist that no “Fred” is the only one who has the authority to deal with that matter and you will have to wait till he gets back. But naturally they might have to wait a month or two!
And there you have it, after a while you will now know exactly when a telemarketing company calls and you have a perfect excuse to hang up on them! What else are they going to do , the person they need to speak to isn’t there !
This could possibly be a loophole in all call scripts because if you try telling them you are no interested they will always have a comeback, but if the person they need to speak to is not there and no one else can deal with the matter then the call is over.
So enjoy and remember to have some fun with it!
Better to say “We had your sales rep here last week, we ordered it from him, why are you calling? is there any problem with our order”. After profuse apologies they may scrub your name of their list of random calls to make in order not to disturb a valued client and maybe call a cancellation. It works for me, try it?