Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: davef@brspyr1.brs.com (Dave Fiske) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Coping With Junk Calls: Like Nancy, Just Say No Message-ID: Date: 11 Sep 89 17:34:43 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY Lines: 58 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 366, message 7 of 8 In article , cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes: > I find junk calls easy to deal with (I get the usual 5-10 per week) --- > it is just a matter of taking a similar attitude as toward junk mail: > finding a bunch of ways to quickly (and low-stressingly) dispatch with > the things. One technique I've found that has worked perfectly for a > month or two now is very simple: if *anyone* calls asking for me by > name ("Is Mr. Cosell at home?"), I simply say "NO". The call usually > ends about two seconds later and I'm done with it... no need for > rudeness or aggression or anything. Here are some tips I've used--as well as some pitfalls to avoid. When the telemarketeer for a local newspaper calls, they often pretend they are checking on your subscription. "Hi, this is Julie from the Times-Union. Are your papers being delivered all right?" This person doesn't have any idea whether you subscribe or not--it's just their way of finding out whether you are a potential sucker for their spiel. I always say "yes" and the person thanks me and hangs up. One time, though, I goofed, and told the person that I bought the paper every morning on my way to work, and didn't need a subscription. I forgot it was an afternoon paper, so she pointed out that I was thinking of the wrong one, and I had to listen to the spiel. Now, sometimes you get someone doing a telephone survey about something, and you don't feel like spending 20 minutes trying to rate the texture of buns from McDonalds hamburgers on a 1 to 5 scale. Usually they ask if you or anyone in your family works for an ad agency or anything. I've sometimes told them my wife does, even though I'm not married. The cruelest thing I ever did was just to stop talking. When the poor woman realized I wasn't responding, she started saying "sir, sir, are you all right? Sir?" After about a minute she hung up, but I think she really did get worried. For some reason I never have used what I worked out to be my best strategy. The whole idea is for us to make the callers waste as much time as possible on an unprofitable call. Remember the person calling is often just a person who needs a job, and maybe didn't have any experience for anything more exciting. There's no need for you to initiate a nasty exchange. If the person really gets obnoxious, I'd say anything is fair, though. Anyway, I always figured it would be good just to ask them to hold on, because someone's at the door, then pretend that you forgot all about the phone. Chances are they will hang on for quite a while, expecting you to come back on. If they wait 3 minutes for you, before hanging up, they will have lost time which they could have used to call several other people. Eventually (in theory) this form of marketing will lose its cost-effectiveness, and the company will go back to direct mail or something. -- "ANGRY WOMEN BEAT UP SHOE SALESMAN Dave Fiske (davef@brspyr1.BRS.COM) WHO POSED AS GYNECOLOGIST" Home: David_A_Fiske@cup.portal.com Headline from Weekly World News CIS: 75415,163 GEnie: davef