Saving time from pestering sales calls

[gibby]

Over the last few months the number of cold callers by phone has increased alot and was wasting too much time.
We seem to have ended up on a list of some sort and getting two or three calls a day & they ring back even if you say NO - with another offer.

We have stopped them from wasting our time by-

Create a new member of staff i.e Alan Sugar who deals with all advertising & marketing. Even set up an email address & put that on your site
When the pests call, simply tell them Mr Sugar deals with all adverts etc but he is out of the office, in a meeting, on a course etc
If they would like to send a copy of the publiction with a price list for his attention, he will consider it.

It works, you don't get into a sales conversation with the rep & the genuine firms do send through the publication. The iffy ones with deadline offers etc don't bother.

When you have the time you can look at the publication & make your mind up at your leisure, no pressure & no bull.
Do take the time to call or email others who advertise & see what their response is like.

Since we adopted this, 95% of the calls have not resulted in publications being sent through. A few of the hard sellers have stated that thier company would not send anything until they have spoken to someone - great!
I respond that our co policy is strict & that Mr Sugar will not even consider advertising until he sees a publication.

They seem to have got the message as most of the calls have now stopped.

Hope it works for you too.

G

 

[SenditOver]

great stuff!

my phone get hammered, and is costing me a fortune due to it being routed to mobile lol

 

[business123]

Over the last few months the number of cold callers by phone has increased alot and was wasting too much time.

I've noticed the number of cold calls I'm receiving has probably tripled in the last few months also, show's how tough it is out there and businesses are desperately trying to get more sales.

 

[Stonelaughter]

Register the number with the Telephone Preference Service. These days it is an offence to even hold such a number on a cold-calling database, never mind actually call it.

 

[Ashley_Price]

Register the number with the Telephone Preference Service. These days it is an offence to even hold such a number on a cold-calling database, never mind actually call it.

Shame it's never been enforced! Not a single business has been fined for ringing people registered with the TPS. It really is a toothless tiger.

After all, what do you if you are registered with the TPS and the salesperson, on hearing you say you are registered, says "Oh, I'm really sorry, I must have misdialed," and hangs up before you can get any more information from them?

 

[Stonelaughter]

Nevertheless it has cut marketing calls to our registered numbers to a mere trickle of autodiallers calling from abroad.

 

[websnail]

Thanks for sharing the tip... Doubtless I'll start getting more of this stuff as I grow..

 

[Knife_fork_spoon]

Although childish - i find that "i know 3 ways to kill a man with a piece of cheese"... does the trick!

They don't ring us back - or a simple "your boring me"... thats what normally gets said about phone insurance.

 

[Ashley_Price]

At work I have an even better service than TPS, it's called a receptionist!

 

[gibby]

Over the last months the number of calls coming in has really increased as firms seem to be very keen to sell at the moment.

It makes me laugh some of the fibs they are telling us.
the other day a chirpy woman was telling me all about the great conversation she had with MR x and that he was very keen to go ahead with her mags to advertise in & then asked what time she could pop by to have another chat with him.

We also got one just asking for a signature from the owner for an ad he had agreed too last week

G

 

[Esk247]

i'm getting relentless calls to my house number from when i used to have it on the website as it was easier to phone my home and be redirected to either mobile or business but the calls are getting ridiculous now...they are phoning at 8am asking about changing my windows or the bloody talk talk people offering me free internet, free telephone, free car, free house (terms apply).

does my tree in.

 

[UKSBD]

It's going to get worse.

A large daily national newspaper is starting to push their online business
directory. to get around the TPS regulations they have outsourced the
call centres to a company in Johannesburg.

This is probably the same newspaper that slags of banks and other
businesses when they outsource call centres overseas.

 

[David Griffiths]

The OP's suggestion may work, but it's basically being untruthful with callers, and most people are quick enough to complain when telemarketers resort to lies to get through. You can achieve the same end by saying that you aren't going to talk to anybody, but they are welcome to post details to you. If they don't want to, that's their problem, but at least you have been honest.

Using a receptionist may seem to work, but the mandate for the telemarketer is often to speak to a decision maker. That being the case, they will call back again and again and again, wasting your receptionist's time even more.

We registered for TPS, which cuts out most calls. We don't screen incoming calls, so a marketer stands a fair chance of speaking to me, if he or she is prepared to break the law. They usually get about five seconds, and I'm always polite to begin with. If they argue, won't take no for an answer or imply that I'm thick not to want their product, that can of course change.

 

[Speedymail]

Shame it's never been enforced! Not a single business has been fined for ringing people registered with the TPS. It really is a toothless tiger.

After all, what do you if you are registered with the TPS and the salesperson, on hearing you say you are registered, says "Oh, I'm really sorry, I must have misdialed," and hangs up before you can get any more information from them?

Quite correct it is toothless although I wouldn't say useless. I used to work for the BT Phonebook (pile of rubbish) and we wern't allowed to cold call TPS registered companies/traders and the management DID enforce it.

 

[deniser]

I answer all incoming calls but have perfected my way of getting rid of them within a few seconds. I say Our marketing/advertising budget is zero this year but if it is free advertising then we will be very interested. They quickly put the phone down.

I do have to be a little careful because we do get magazines etc ringing up asking for information or pictures or the loan of products (which is all free PR) because they need my product for their photoshoot. So as David says, I always start very politely.

 

[cjd]

We transfer persistent and agressive telesales people to extension 166. If you're a Voipfone user you can hear what it does by dialling 166.

If you want to hear it anyway call 0871 80 77 166 - it'll cost you about 10p.

http://www.voipfoneuserforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2678

 

[Jenni384]

We transfer persistent and agressive telesales people to extension 166. If you're a Voipfone user you can hear what it does by dialling 166.

If you want to hear it anyway call 0871 80 77 166 - it'll cost you about 10p.

http://www.voipfoneuserforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2678

heard this before and loved it

Gibby, thanks for the OP, if things get worse I might try it (A N Farrant will live again )

 

[David Griffiths]

I thought that I'd heard it all, but today I was proved wrong.

I was told off by an telemarketer for not mentioning at the start of the conversation that we are on TPS, and I had therefore wasted her time! Arrogant sod.

Chloe, from American Express Foreign Exchange, should go far. The further the better, in fact.

 

[Vacman2000]

Its even simpler, almost most tele sales people are taught if someone hangs up on you just dial the next number. It cost money to call someone. So next time just hang up only 1 in a 100 call back thinking they were cut off.

 

[wecandobiz]

OK, I have to pipe up on this one.

First off, make sure your register on the COMPANY Telephone Preference Services, not the domestic one. They are different. And the CTPS list you will need to renew your position annually. 28 days after you register you should no longer get calls. If you do, take their details and then reveal you are on CTPS and you will be reporting them. Simple.

My other point is BE NICE! These are people just doing their jobs. Cold calling works for a lot of companies and will go on forever. Business gets done that way. I can understand if it is a pain for some recipients but why do you have to be nasty? It is someone just doing a job. They're unlikely to refuse to do it if you shout or are rude, are they? Treat people with a little respect please. We often get caught doing something we don't enjoy and obnoxious morons don't add anything positive to the experience for anyone.

IH

 

[Vacman2000]

I do not know about you guys, but I have done tele sales it is a good way to get business. I approched people from the telephone book. When people said they were on the prefrence list.
I simply quoted that they were in the phone book, and this information was public domain. I also told prefrence service who did not do anything about the report.

 

[wecandobiz]

I do not know about you guys, but I have done tele sales it is a good way to get business. I approched people from the telephone book. When people said they were on the prefrence list.
I simply quoted that they were in the phone book, and this information was public domain. I also told prefrence service who did not do anything about the report.

Bad practice I am afraid Vacman. Inclusion in the telephone book doesn't mean they welcome sales calls. In fact their inclusion in CTPS says expressly that they don't. I hate to have to be so direct, but that practice is exactly what is getting cold calling a bad name and making it hard for those of us who play by the rules.

IH

 

[gibby]

Its actually illegal to go through phone books & cold call without paying the publisher a fee.
Yellow pages used to put in dummy ads just to catch firms out, not sure if they still do.

I too used to do some cold calls for a previous business & many firms were really getting sick of so many calls.

I agree with being nice & feel sorry for the ppl who do this for a living as it can be a very thankless task.
What does annoy me is that certain publishing groups ring repeatedly even when you say no, often ringing for several different mags a week.

We were getting hit for many of the new eco & green lifestyle publications and just found we were on a list for 3 publishers.
In one day we got over 30 calls and some of them just wont take a no & often ring back with a better offer.

Once we implemented the practice of just asking for details to be sent it dropped to a couple per week.
Most call centres now dont pay per call but for bandwith instead.


Legally there must be a level of when it becomes a nuisance or pestering.
One firm gave my staff one hell of a time earlier in the year, constantly pestering them for my mobile as "we were advertising with them & going to generate lots of new business"
When I spoke to trading standards & our legal guys they told me these firms just win by using pester power, most firms cave in after 30 or 40 calls & waste so much staff time.

Most cold callers are not like this at all but there are a few outfits that do

G

 

[Successful Selling]

We have stopped them from wasting our time by-

Create a new member of staff i.e Alan Sugar who deals with all advertising & marketing. Even set up an email address & put that on your site

Why don't you just tell them you don't have anymore money to spend on advertising? If the salesperson is any good, they should then ask
you when your new budget starts. You then reply with a random date around 11 months later.

If you just say 'no' or make up the name of someone, I would just keep ringing you randomly until I got through. In the mean time I would try and learn something about you or the company everytime I call. This means I would just get to learn about you - knowing that YOU are probably gonna be the one I need to sweet-talk to get through to the desicion maker.

All you are doing is wasting my time and yours. When I call a few hundred people a day, writting 'caller unavailable' means I will call you back. If i write 'No budget' I'm gonna find some other person to chase.

The other problem is; if i never speak to the desicion maker, then I don't actually know if they want my product or not, as often the gatekeeper is just trained to stop people like me calling. Therefore all I will do is keep trying hoping the gatekeeper is on lunch/finished/holiday etc etc.

Saying 'no' or 'not interested' means nothing to a good salesperson. All this does is lead them to ask more questions to learn why you are not interested and what exactly your concerns and objections are.

 

[wecandobiz]

Saying 'no' or 'not interested' means nothing to a good salesperson. All this does is lead them to ask more questions to learn why you are not interested and what exactly your concerns and objections are.

I disagree. No means nothing to a sales person who isn't listening and is asking the wrong questions. I want to hear that someone has a need. If they haven't, or won't share it, then I move on.

IH

 

[gibby]

Some good points.
I suppose the challenge is that most of those sale ppl are not good ones, infact very poor ones.

What usually happens to us - the latest eco mag rep gets on the phone & just starts vomiting (also know as George Bushing) about how great the mag is, the massive success etc etc. Ive lost interest in 10 seconds

They never take the time to ask if you have a few moments to spare to see if they can help increase business or call back when convienient.
Im know most of would be far more receptive to something like this.

The other challenge is often they start with a fantastic special offer, 90%
cheaper than normal rates which again makes us switch off.

Some of them just start pitching to whoever picks up the phone. Wasting our staff time.

Quite often we get the same rep or differnet rep from the saemg roup of mags calling several times a week as there is a special feature on xyz - which will be great as ....... snore snore

When we had the problem with one firm, trading standards advised us to have a clear policy that only person handled advertising, that everything was put in writing before any agreement was made.

Saying to these poor reps we dont have the budget is a waste of time.

The system we now use is simple. We dont waste our valuble time on the phone with the McNuggets who dont listen.
If they are genuine enough to send through a few copies we can then review them when we are receptive enough & there is far more chance we will take an ad especially if the price is clear from the beginning.

We are always looking for new ways to generate business but we totally back away from any pushy sales ppl as we just dont want to deal with them.

G

 

[Mattonella Tile Studio]

Saying 'no' or 'not interested' means nothing to a good salesperson. All this does is lead them to ask more questions to learn why you are not interested and what exactly your concerns and objections are.

Well perhaps salespeople should listen when you say no. I've just hung up on Yellow Pages as she decided to start arguing with me.

I very politely told her that I wasn't interested in going into the directory. She probed why, as she would, and I said I basically didn't think it would pay me back. She then started asking questions about the business, to which I replied I didn't need to answer as I'm not interested. And still she went on "but what I need to tell you is what other tile companies are doing etc etc."

My response to her was "no, what you need to say is thank you for your time Mr x, goodbye"

She's wasting my time, she's wasting her own time, and she's now wasting CTPS's time as I've reported them.

Do these salespeople honestly think that by arguing with you they will turn things around? Challenge objections yes. Argue back no.

Rant over, back to work.

 

[Ashley_Price]

Has anyone seen THIS article on the BBC site?

 

[Jenni384]

Has anyone seen THIS article on the BBC site?

Sounds very clever!

 

[Mattonella Tile Studio]

Has anyone seen THIS article on the BBC site?

Great idea for personal lines; but I don't feel it would be appropriate on a business line.

 

[gibby]

Well perhaps salespeople should listen when you say no. I've just hung up on Yellow Pages as she decided to start arguing with me.

I very politely told her that I wasn't interested in going into the directory. She probed why, as she would, and I said I basically didn't think it would pay me back. She then started asking questions about the business, to which I replied I didn't need to answer as I'm not interested. And still she went on "but what I need to tell you is what other tile companies are doing etc etc."

My response to her was "no, what you need to say is thank you for your time Mr x, goodbye"

She's wasting my time, she's wasting her own time, and she's now wasting CTPS's time as I've reported them.

Do these salespeople honestly think that by arguing with you they will turn things around? Challenge objections yes. Argue back no.

Rant over, back to work.

does anyone actually still use yellow pages?

I use one every day as a stand for my pc as the floor gets cold in the office.
I cant remember the last time I used one to find a number

G

 

[cjd]

Has anyone seen THIS article on the BBC site?

That's quite cute - I think we'll implement something similar. It's very easy to do.

 

[Successful Selling]

Well perhaps salespeople should listen when you say no. I've just hung up on Yellow Pages as she decided to start arguing with me.

I very politely told her that I wasn't interested in going into the directory. She probed why, as she would, and I said I basically didn't think it would pay me back. She then started asking questions about the business, to which I replied I didn't need to answer as I'm not interested. And still she went on "but what I need to tell you is what other tile companies are doing etc etc."

My response to her was "no, what you need to say is thank you for your time Mr x, goodbye"

She's wasting my time, she's wasting her own time, and she's now wasting CTPS's time as I've reported them.

Do these salespeople honestly think that by arguing with you they will turn things around? Challenge objections yes. Argue back no.

Rant over, back to work.

I don't agree with arguing either, however, I have to say this demonstrates my point.

You had a genuine objection-you didn't think it would be cost effective. Therefore the salesperson should reply; 'If I can prove the yellow pages is cost effective, would you be interested?'

You would then reply Yes or no.
If you reply yes, then the salesperson then needs to find out what is required for you to believe the advert would work.

If you reply no, then it suggests that this isn't your only concern. They would then need to continue questioning you to discover what your other objections are.

As I said, 'No' or 'not interested' is not a reason for a salesperson to end the call.

 

[cjd]

As I said, 'No' or 'not interested' is not a reason for a salesperson to end the call.

I suspect that is the reason why many people have to resort to being rude or hanging up and another reason why the industry has a bad reputation.

As the rape lawyers say, No means No.

 

[Successful Selling]

I suspect that is the reason why many people have to resort to being rude or hanging up and another reason why the industry has a bad reputation.

As the rape lawyers say, No means No.

What a crap comparism. Comparing someone whose about to be raped with somone who say no because they may be 'too busy to speak at the moment' are too totally different things. A salesperson asking for clarrification of the reason someone says 'no' is not a strange or unlawful request.

Just read the replies to your posts in this thread.
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=77792&highlight=telesales&page=11

Just like every industry, there are people who let the whole industry down.

 

[Jenni384]

What a crap comparism. Comparing someone whose about to be raped with somone who say no because they may be 'too busy to speak at the moment' are too totally different things.

It wasn't the best example. However, no still means no.
The caller might be interested in why the person says no, but if no has been said, it's polite to say "Thank you for your time, good bye."

To continue on and on (as some do) is just rude.

To say, "May I ask why?" is fine but if the person then says something to close the conversation, the caller should take the hint and close the conversation. Anything more is rude and is why we don't like cold callers.

 

[lockie]

Just cut them off then they cannot answer the objections,seems to work too, cut off 3 today without any ringing back.As they all seem to ignore anything you say and the fact your on tps its the only thing to work consistently.
I dont even say anything now just cut them off and thats the end of it.
What these people fail to realise if they were to keep coming around your house knocking on your door offering their services time and time again most people would get quite irate, so why is it any different on the phone ?
As for they are only doing their job, tough,get another job then. I get loads of carp doing repos but i know it comes with the job so i just get on with it.

 

[cjd]

What a crap comparism.

It's actually quite hard to create a conditional statement around the word "No".

Only salesmen (and rapists) believe that "No" is just a word said before "yes". The rest of us mean "Go Away" - at best.

Hyperbole apart, when people say no, I think it would benefit your profession if you said thank you and goodbye.

 

[wecandobiz]

These last few posts prove why, when cold calling, you need to know when to let it drop. No means no when it is getting quite clear you are starting to cheese someone off.

In my view the most important part of a cold call is the first 30 seconds. If you haven't said something compelling in that time which plays to the issues that person is having in their job such that they will have a conversation with you about it, then you're on a hiding to nothing. It does anyone a favour if the caller recognises that and moves on.

This whole "there is no such thing as no" nonsense is the sort of thing they used to teach sales people in the 80s.

IH

 

[David Griffiths]

Sorry, in cold calling No means No the first time that I say it.