I read an article today that said there are now more US homes utilizing their cellphone as their main phone line than there are homes still using a landline. Now I’m scared. I’m not looking forward to the repercussions of this news coming out. I’ve been one of these people for nearly 10 years.
I gave up on my landline. I had simply received too many sales calls at home to ever stop what I was doing and run to the phone. We’ve all gone through it. A few months ago there was even a news story out that talked about sales calls holding up our 911 emergency service. My ex-wife’s father used to just never answer the phone. Which was a true inconvenience for those of us who may have really needed to speak to him while we were stranded on the side of I-71 during a major snowstorm. But he wasn’t inconvenienced. He wasn’t bothered at all. He just shut it out and never answered the phone. Not all of us can do that. “What’s the point of having a phone if you’re never going to use it?”
I had a cellphone. That was great. While my friends all complained of all the cold calling made to their number, I sat back silent. I didn’t want anyone to know I figured out a way to beat the system. No more sales calls for me, for a little while.
Oddly enough, not long after I signed up for something online requiring my phone number, I started to receive sales calls again. Not as many, but the same ones over and over again. These calls had changed though. They had become computerized (remember we’re talking about within the last 10 years). I’d answer a number I didn’t recognize - which seems to be my downfall, but an important note for this read. “Hello?” I’d ask two or more times into the silence. Then there would be a click and maybe a beep as the computer that called me connects me to “Good Morning, I’m trying to reach… Narry Acosto”. Well, when they can’t get the name right, it’s an easy out - “I’m sorry there is no such person at this number”, then one last click from my end.
Sometimes, they’d get it right and I wasn’t sure if I was being contacted by a potential client or if it was another sales call. What then do you do? You have to play along. But you can learn from it. Yes you can contact the National Do Not Call Registry and make it illegal for sales people to call you. It does work and you can register your cellphone as well. But as I mentioned these calls had changed. They had become sub-sneaky, but they’re improving their game.
As I mentioned, there is the click, click, beep scenario before we were transferred to a sales associate. As a nation we got wise to this and we’d just hang up. Even if instead of a few clicks, a very nice voice answered and told us to please hold because there was an important message coming through on the other line. Bogus - we got it, we hung up. But they still keep calling.
Second there is the ESL (English as a Second Language) salesperson reading from a script telling me that they are calling me from Columbus, Ohio, but the call is coming from a Maryland area code. Yes, they can’t answer a single question, they just repeat verbatim from the script again. And yes, they are clearly not calling from Ohio, but it isn’t the area code that gives them away so easily as the fact that they say they’re calling from “Columbus, Ohio”. I’ve never tried to convince someone that I was a local by saying what state I was in. They might as well be saying planet Earth at that point. This issue encompasses more than just telemarketing, but I’ll be happy to discuss that at a later time.
Lastly, there is the most insulting of all. The prerecorded message that I have to answer. Wait, what? Let’s first note that the sales person’s time is much more important than ours in this scenario. I’m not overlooking that the same is the case in the click, click, beep scenario, but this one forces you to answer the phone if you never want to be contacted again. I found myself disappointed that I missed one of these calls just as much as if I missed an important conference call. I’m getting ahead of myself. Sure, it is a phone number that I don’t recognize. So why do I have to answer it? I check my voicemail to see what calls I’ve missed:
“This is an important call about the warranty for your automobile that is about to expire…”
Sure, my car has over 200,000 miles on it. So why again, do I have to answer it? Because of option #2. My voicemail won’t press #2 to opt out of these calls and this guarantees that they will indeed be calling back.
So even if we register our phone numbers and only use a cellphone, and never answer our phones, they’re still going to keep calling. And we like to think we’re fighting back. A correspondent of mine once said, “But no one can ever get a hold of you. Why do you even have a cellphone?” My phone has moved away from being a mode with which to contact me. My phone is used so I can contact everyone else. I guess my ex-father-in-law knew what he was doing after all.
And they’re gong to get trickier. They won’t be calling from Columbus, Ohio, they’ll be “A Fellow Buckeye, Like Myself”. And that is just the problem. Tricky somehow became the solution to getting sales. Salespeople have rarely ever been welcome in any aspect of my life, but I think if I ever get an honest cold-call from someone in the near future, I think I might welcome the conversation.
Marketing with Virtue,
Harry Acosta
Sole Proprietor
Sylph, Llc.
sylph@woway.com
sylphmarketing.com
