Cold calling ideas needed

ValHaller

Goldiegirl wrote: »

Why not just say no thank you and put the phone down.

They are only doing their job

I firmly believe that the harder people make that job for them the less likely they will be to continue doing it. You, goldiegirl, are not pulling your weight in the struggle against phone spam. You should waste their time to reduce the number of calls they can make. If you get rid of them at the moment in 15 seconds they can go on and annoy 3 other people in a minute. And if you kept them busy for a whole minute, that would be 3 less people they would annoy,

Person_one

ValHaller wrote: »

I firmly believe that the harder people make that job for them the less likely they will be to continue doing it. You, goldiegirl, are not pulling your weight in the struggle against phone spam. You should waste their time to reduce the number of calls they can make. If you get rid of them at the moment in 15 seconds they can go on and annoy 3 other people in a minute. And if you kept them busy for a whole minute, that would be 3 less people they would annoy,

Imagine this was posted on the employment board, how would you respond?

"Really hope somebody can help, I'm at the end of my tether! I was unemployed for 6 months after being made redundant and the only job I've been able to get is cold calling for a PPI claims firm. I hate it, I hate annoying people, I hate trying to convince them to part with their money and its really starting to get me down how rude and abusive people are.

Anyway, I'm not meeting my targets, and I'm on a written warning that I have to improve. If I don't I'm sacked in a fortnight! My wife is on maternity leave on SMP and if I lose this job my JSA will be sanctioned so we won't have enough to pay our rent or bills. I can't sleep at night with the stress of it, and I feel physically sick before every call I make. Is there any help or any allowance made by the job centre for being sacked from or leaving this kind of job?"

Brighton_belle

Person_one wrote: »

Anyway, I'm not meeting my targets, and I'm on a written warning that I have to improve. If I don't I'm sacked in a fortnight! My wife is on maternity leave on SMP and if I lose this job my JSA will be sanctioned so we won't have enough to pay our rent or bills. I can't sleep at night with the stress of it, and I feel physically sick before every call I make. Is there any help or any allowance made by the job centre for being sacked from or leaving this kind of job?"

Are you suggesting that we have to actually buy the stuff they are cold call selling in order for them to not lose their jobs i.e. while people being rude is getting them down, but actually us not buying anything that will cause them to lose their job?

Person_one

Brighton_belle wrote: »

Are you suggesting that we have to actually buy the stuff they are cold call selling in order for them to not lose their jobs i.e. while people being rude is getting them down, but actually us not buying anything that will cause them to lose their job?

No, I'm just advocating a little bit of thought for the human being on the other end of the phone and pointing out what a sh!tty position they could be in.

Richard53

I used to work in a call centre, as manager of about 70-80 reps (I also did my time online). You wouldn't believe the abuse some of the reps got from customers, and the number of times I had one of my reps in tears because of the foul and aggressive attitude that people gave them over the phone. And we weren't even cold calling - we were customer service and tech support for a digital TV company, and the customers were calling us! These were, in the main, nice kids who had not long left school and were just trying to make their way in the world. My own daughter worked for BT tech support for a year, and had the same treatment. If could have found one of the big men who thought it was OK to say f*ck and c*nt to an 18-year-old girl who was trying to help them, I would have punched his lights out.

Since that experience, I am always very civil to anyone calling me, wherever they are calling from, and for whatever reason. I say "sorry, not interested, and please take my number off the list". I see no reason to be nasty to someone who is only doing a job. Yes, you can argue that they shouldn't be doing that job, and should perhaps be nobly on the dole instead, but the world doesn't work like that. We all have to eat.

However, if they don't get the message quickly, or if they are cheeky or pushy after my polite response, then they get both barrels. They have earned it.

Pollycat

Mrs_Imp wrote: »

I'm fed up with cold callers, so I'm going to have a bit of fun with them from now on:
Singing at them
Reading a story to them
Speaking German at them

any more ideas would be greatly appreciated. Nothing abusive though please.

Mrs_Imp wrote: »

They have been harrassing me for 9 months, asking for someone who has never had this number. I keep asking politely for them to stop calling. They keep calling. Time for some fun.

To me, this is not cold-calling.

I just ignore calls from numbers I don't recognise or if they are 'withheld' on my caller display.
If they really want to speak to me or OH, they'll leave a message.

I wouldn't be wasting my time singing to them or speaking German.
I would be finding out what company they are from and getting in touch with them to request removal from their call list.

Do you even know which company it is calling you?
Is it a UK company?
Do you know why they are chasing this person? It could be to do with a debt.

If you don't know which company it is, there is a website called 'Who calls me' that will tell you the company name and maybe even someone can you help on stopping the calls altogether.

However, if you have all the time in the world and 'want to have a bit of fun', carry on.

sillygoose

Richard53 wrote: »

I used to work in a call centre, as manager of about 70-80 reps (I also did my time online). You wouldn't believe the abuse some of the reps got from customers, and the number of times I had one of my reps in tears because of the foul and aggressive attitude that people gave them over the phone. And we weren't even cold calling - we were customer service and tech support for a digital TV company, and the customers were calling us! These were, in the main, nice kids who had not long left school and were just trying to make their way in the world. My own daughter worked for BT tech support for a year, and had the same treatment. If could have found one of the big men who thought it was OK to say f*ck and c*nt to an 18-year-old girl who was trying to help them, I would have punched his lights out.

Since that experience, I am always very civil to anyone calling me, wherever they are calling from, and for whatever reason. I say "sorry, not interested, and please take my number off the list". I see no reason to be nasty to someone who is only doing a job. Yes, you can argue that they shouldn't be doing that job, and should perhaps be nobly on the dole instead, but the world doesn't work like that. We all have to eat.

However, if they don't get the message quickly, or if they are cheeky or pushy after my polite response, then they get both barrels. They have earned it.

No one has said should call a service centre and be abusive, that is totally unacceptable.

We are talking about cold calling, unsolicited, scam peddling, nuisance incoming calls.

I am fed up of the little hard luck stories for people that work doing this, there were other jobs before call centres, there are other jobs since. If you don't think people should be rude to you or can't handle it - walk out the door its your choice.

Remember a lot of the time cold caller are selling things to gullible or worse, vulnerable people that they don't need or are rip off deals they could get elsewhere vastly cheaper using misleading or scare tactics. This puts them on a par with con artists and muggers. Is this an acceptable way to 'earn' a living? Not for those of us with an ounce of morals.

Georgiegirl256

Goldiegirl wrote: »

Why not just say no thank you and put the phone down.

They are only doing their job

You wouldn't be saying that if the same people phoned again and again and AGAIN! They might only be doing their job, but I'm trying to relax/have my tea etc!

I'm polite at first until they won't take no for an answer, start to get pushy, ring numourous times etc and then I either lose my rag or hang up on them. I'm not rude or nasty, but I make it clear I'm not happy. For those that have a little fun with them winding them up, well why not? I might try that myself next time!

alleycat`

mtc95 wrote: »

It doesn't help much for those of us who receive legimate calls from friends and family overseas. The caller display just shows "International" and you have no idea whether it's someone you want to talk to or not.

It really annoys me that the phone companies do not pass on the caller ID for overseas calls as I'm pretty sure they could retrieve the information - for calls from most developed countries at least. Even if it just showed the country that they were calling from it would help to filter out the junk.

As you are MSE you'll be using something free equivalent to skype surely?

Faith177

OH told me a great one the other day that he saw in a magazine. When they ring answer in a low voice saying "It's done but there's blood everwhere" then just hang up.

Knowing my luck I would then have a knock on the door from the boys in blue