« Hospital Bill | Main | ATTENTION All Bloggers! »
Ever Been Put on Hold for a Cold Caller?
By JLP | February 23, 2006
I just answered the phone and it was some dufus who told me that so-and-so would be with me in just a second. Of course I hung the phone up. Cold calling is hard enough by itself. I can’t imagine how much harder it is if you ask the person who picks up the phone to hold for someone else. Who does this? How can it even be successful? I rank it right up there with the cheap Viagra emails I get. Does ANYBODY buy medicine from such an email?
Topics: Miscellaneous | 6 Comments »
February 23rd, 2006 at 9:06 pm
You are right about annoying calls. We have gotten to where we won’t answer any call that comes up on the caller ID as “Unknown name” or “Unknown caller”. They go straight to the answering machine. And we even have our number on the do-not-call registry. We pay the bills so we decide when to answer. So there!
February 23rd, 2006 at 11:21 pm
Actually, I refinanced my house to buy a timeshare, loaded up on viagra, get various body parts enlarged, and ended up retiring on the 127 milliard (nice word, had to look it up) rupees I won in the Indian national lottery last week!
And yes, I have been put on hold by phone-spamming auto dialers…
February 24th, 2006 at 2:13 am
PS to my above: the doofus is electronic – it’s a new “feature” of phonespam autodialers to try to get you on the line until their phonebank person gets around to talking to you. If it works 1 time in 100, it’s worth it to them, since autodialers nowadays just kick your call to a dead zone if the phonebank is busy.
February 24th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
The dead zone is what I use to gauge whether it’s a real person or not. If I say “Hello?” two or three times without a peep, I hang up.
February 25th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
I hate telemarketers, creditors (those that are calling for your money if you don’t pay off the entire debt at once or are late even one day), and especially SPAMMERS.
February 28th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Whether we like it or not cold callers generate lots of business. We should focus on improving the way this is done. If proportionally 100 calls get a response of 20 hits, then there is a business case right? So why not encourage the cold callers to be more human. The number of hits might go up, and the experience might not be half as bad for us poor recipients! There’s a woman from the UK I know who is currently revolutionising cold calling – she’s called Nicky Pattinson. (www.hiyaitsnicky.com)