![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dear telemarketers.
I do not want to listen to your spiel. Yes, I'm sure it's fabulous, and you'll offer me wormhole technology, a free set of steak knives AND all the tea in China.
But. I. Do. Not. Want. To. Listen.
When I repeat, politely, "We're not interested, thank you." this is YOUR cue to stop and say, "Well, thank you for your time, good night."
This is NOT your cue to repeat for the THIRD TIME, "Well, how do you know you don't want our new-fangled froonium drive?"
I know that you have a set script, that you have been trained to continually barrage people with offers and, "Don't you think maybe you're paying too much now?"
Guess what? It doesn't work. It makes me tense up and nearly rip your head off verbally. And, really, I know this isn't your fault.
You've been trained to badger people until they feel guilty enough to listen.
I'm not guilty. I'm pissed off.
Our phone number is on the state's "No Call" list. You're not supposed to call us.
Next time you call? I'll get your company name, your name, the name of your superviser, and then report you. I was angry this time. I'll be enraged next time.
But. I. Do. Not. Want. To. Listen.
When I repeat, politely, "We're not interested, thank you." this is YOUR cue to stop and say, "Well, thank you for your time, good night."
This is NOT your cue to repeat for the THIRD TIME, "Well, how do you know you don't want our new-fangled froonium drive?"
I know that you have a set script, that you have been trained to continually barrage people with offers and, "Don't you think maybe you're paying too much now?"
Guess what? It doesn't work. It makes me tense up and nearly rip your head off verbally. And, really, I know this isn't your fault.
You've been trained to badger people until they feel guilty enough to listen.
I'm not guilty. I'm pissed off.
Our phone number is on the state's "No Call" list. You're not supposed to call us.
Next time you call? I'll get your company name, your name, the name of your superviser, and then report you. I was angry this time. I'll be enraged next time.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Me: "Does your medical coverage include surgery to remove the phone I'm going to insert into you?"
None of them have ever offered me wormhole technology, frell it.
no subject
no subject
damn i need one of those!!! :)
Having been a telemarketer twice in my life
Telemarketers are not trained to badger people until they feel guilty enough to listen.
They are forced, under pain of getting docked and/or fired on the spot for not continuing the spiel, like it or not, even if you've said no, until you hang up on them.
If your number is on the no-call list, then just get the information from them, and report them. What is all this "next time" stuff? Do it any time a telemarketer calls, without fail.
The telemarketer is just some poor schlub, like I was in December-January, who is down on his/her luck in a really lousy economy, facing the bleak "prospects" of the worst job market in a decade.
It may be annoying to deal with, but let me tell you, being cursed out and told I am going to hell, that I'm mentally ill, that I should starve and/or be homeless rather than do that job, and am going to have personal, private body parts yanked out forcibly by the people on the other end of the phone is what I had to deal with doing it.
You're doing yourself and the telemarketer both a favor by being calm, getting the info for the No-Call and running it up the proper chain of command.
It's not like the person you spoke to had any control over your number being the one he chanced to call. Autodialers do it all and the person you spoke to had no way of doing anything about it.
Blast me and flame me for this if you must, but I couldn't just sit here and not say what it's like from the other side of the phone, having lived it.
Re: Having been a telemarketer twice in my life
And, yes. It IS a psychological trick to say, "But you haven't even listened to me."
Re: Having been a telemarketer twice in my life
Re: Having been a telemarketer twice in my life
"But you haven't listened to me" is not so much a psychological trick as the person on the phone getting desperate to get you to listen in the hopes that s/he might make a sale out of you. Because that's the other thing that counts big against you. Numbers.
They wanted me to stay after I found a real job, and I ran for the door so fast I left a temporal disturbance in my wake. Because I could get numbers.
But the people who don't? They disappear and don't come back. We don't hear they were fired. We just knew because they suddenly were gone and nobody ever speaks of them again.
With that kind of pressure on a person, it makes it just the right environment to not follow the script verbatim [and see, they get lenient about you not following the script verbatim if you make sales doing it. But if you don't make sales -- they enforce] and say things in desperation to make just one sale.
This is why I posted about the experience so much in my LJ.
I realize that being telemarketed to is annoying and offensive. I realize that some people telemarketing are themselves annoying and offensive, but the rest are just people who need to put food on the table.
Their job is offensive, but they're not, intentionally, so much as they are just desperate to keep what's bringing any money into their hand.
Re: Having been a telemarketer twice in my life
I lub you, Lyssum.