Telemarketing: Negative or positive effect?

[goKi]

To me, it has a negative effect. I'm less than likely to deal with a business/charity who makes unsolicited calls to my house/mobile phone, in fact, i've never dealt with a single company that has did this to me, with the exception of Telstra, who i'm sure have gotten quite alot of my money, since they nearly monopolise the telocommunications industry in Australia.

Starting in 2007, Australia will have a national 'Do Not Call' list put in place, where if telemarketers call numbers off this list, they can face prosecution. Unfortunately, charities and not for profit organisations are still exempt, who often call advertising competitions, which adds you onto their books (allowing for further phone calls, and mail subscriptions hassling for more donations.)

Has anyone here ever bought something off a telemarketer?

[Drunken Tiger]

I use to be a telemarketer for Timeshare, dont throw anything at me yet, I was desperate for money, and hell, $21.00 AUD per hour was good enough for me. Though i didnt get any sales, so i got fired. lolz

Now im doing legit stuff, market research for state governments, so i guess noone gets angry and cusses me off teh phone. :) Pay is good as well.

But back to the point, i havent bought anything from telemarketers, if im bored, I'd just pretend that im interested but speak broken english. :) Plus all teh telemarketers here are Indian for some reason..
:shrug:

[goKi]

Rather than come to your house and beat you, i'll ask you something. How rude were people to you.. What was the rudest person you ever had?

[Drunken Tiger]

Some were just like, "Not interested". I remember this one time when i called up, and the convo went somethign like this..

Guy: "Do you know what time it is?"
Me : "Yes, 6oclock."
Guy: "No its fkn tea time, not fuck off."
Me : "What teh fk is tea time?"

I have never heard of tea time. I just found out a coupla weeks later that it was the meal in between lunch and dinner. lolz

[goKi]

I used to just hang up on bastards like you, DT (:P, you've gotta expect it, you've sold your soul). Then, they'd call back. Did you develop some attitude at the people who told you off, or did you keep being polite?

[Drunken Tiger]

Depends how bored i was, I didnt really care when people told me off, I had the Im making $21ph biatch mentality regardless if you talk to me or not... :p

Sometimes i would piss people off by asking if i could call back, or if they are sure they dont want to buy timeshare or just telling them that i will call back later.. :D

The joy of pissing people off..

[goKi]

Yeah, that part of the job would be great. Pissing people off is in the job description, so go a little overboard, eh?

[Drunken Tiger]

It was great, you get paid to sit on ur ass and call random people. Its great pay too, but so many people got fired or quit because they couldnt handle teh abuse. Lol, easy money. Just grin and bear.

I've got a market research job now, its like telemarketing's cousin, the only bad thing is the weekend shifts, while everyone else is out and about, your stuck in ur lil cubicle staring at a blue computer screen asking questions.:(

[Archibaldo]

Meh, telemarketers are fun to mess with. Just ask them a bunch of perverted questions, like: "so, what're you wearing?" In my experience that seems to work. Or you could do what Jerry did on Seinfeld. "Hello, oh sorry I'm a little busy right now, but if you give me your home phone number, I'll call you back. Oh you're not supposed to give our your home phone numbers? Oh you probably don't want people calling you at home. Well now you know how I feel."

[moocow]

I used to work for Harry & David. Customers would call in to order things, and every other sentence that came otu of my mouth had to be an offer for something else. The customer would get annoyed an dhang up, and then I'd get lectured by one of the section leaders because I didn't get the sale.

They almost fired me once because I couldn't get any incentives sold, lol. Wtf, it's not my fault if someone doesn't want to buy some $20 cinnamon rolls.

[Yoshiman]

Never bought anything from a telemarketer, but they're fun to play around with. My dad and sisters often say odd things to them:

Sister: Hello?
Telemarketer: Hi, I'm calling on behalf of [whatever], are your parents home?
Sister: Hold on
Sister (in old lady voice): THIS IS MS. CRUUUUUUMBLYBOTTOM. DO YOU HAVE ANY OINTMENT FOR MY CRUUUUUMBLY BUTT? *hangs up*

And we were also eating dinner one night, my dad picks up the phone, and makes this annoyed face and says "I like pie." He does this until he gets hung up on.