New way of dealing with telesales callers

[XmisterIS]

The art of completely doing a telesales caller's head is to string them along with conflicting and nonsense information. I just had a call from a double glazing company, the conversation went something like as follows:

Hello, please may I speak to XmisterIS?


Who are you?


May I speak to XmisterIS please?


Who are you please?


I really need to speak to XmisterIS, is he the householder? (by this time I'd twigged that it was a sales call).


Who the hell are you? Don't you phone me up without telling me who you are, cheeky sod!


Ah! Uh ... uh ... ah ... um ....


Well?


Um ..... I'm calling from <company name> and we're doing a promotional offer in your area at the moment, we ...


[Me, shouting] Well? Well well well? Oh very well?


What?


Carry on! As you were!


<does sales pitch, with me going "uh huh, uh huh" and occasionally "banana"> Are you interested in getting a great deal on your windows today?


Oh jolly Roger! Roger me like a good'un! It's Christmas come early! Of course I am!


Ummm ... OK ... We could send out an executive to visit you tomorrow morning if you like, when is good for you?


3 o'clock.


Ah, no, it'll have to be in the morning.


Yes. 3 o'clock.

The conversation continued in a similar vein for about 10 minutes with me telling him first that I had 7 windows, then that I had 15 windows ("Of course that's what I said! Fifteen! Not seven! Weren't you listening? Stupid boy! Get it right! Write it down right, seven times right, not fifteen, right? Write right?"), etc, eventually he just got so distressed that he hung up.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

Love it

I also try the "What a wonderful opportunity this is - Can I talk to you about my Lord and Saviour?". The call is usually a short one

The art of completely doing a telesales caller's head is to string them along with conflicting and nonsense information. I just had a call from a double glazing company, the conversation went something like as follows:

Hello, please may I speak to XmisterIS?


Who are you?


May I speak to XmisterIS please?


Who are you please?


I really need to speak to XmisterIS, is he the householder? (by this time I'd twigged that it was a sales call).


Who the hell are you? Don't you phone me up without telling me who you are, cheeky sod!


Ah! Uh ... uh ... ah ... um ....


Well?


Um ..... I'm calling from <company name> and we're doing a promotional offer in your area at the moment, we ...


[Me, shouting] Well? Well well well? Oh very well?


What?


Carry on! As you were!


<does sales pitch, with me going "uh huh, uh huh" and occasionally "banana"> Are you interested in getting a great deal on your windows today?


Oh jolly Roger! Roger me like a good'un! It's Christmas come early! Of course I am!


Ummm ... OK ... We could send out an executive to visit you tomorrow morning if you like, when is good for you?


3 o'clock.


Ah, no, it'll have to be in the morning.


Yes. 3 o'clock.

The conversation continued in a similar vein for about 10 minutes with me telling him first that I had 7 windows, then that I had 15 windows ("Of course that's what I said! Fifteen! Not seven! Weren't you listening? Stupid boy! Get it right! Write it down right, seven times right, not fifteen, right? Write right?"), etc, eventually he just got so distressed that he hung up.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Tell 'em to f*ck off and slam the phone down, always works with the mother in law.

 

[qwiksilver]

I always go with the trying to sell them back what they are offering me, when it comes to the mobile phone companies this gets extremely funny by offering them a better deal!!!

 

[NormanD]

This is how you deal with them ... still makes me laugh

 

[Hacienda71]

Tell them you will get the person and leave the phone of the hook for half an hour while you go about your normal daily life.

 

[Over The Hill]

Tell them you charge £25 to accept an unsolicited call. The slow ones agree but then go away quite fast when you start takeing their details for your billing.

 

[Oldgit]

Mate of mine had a conservatory salesmen on the phone for 20 mins agreeing to all and sundry. Right at the end of the call when the salesmen thought he had the job sold, my mate asked how they fitted conservatories to flats in tower blocks as that's where he lived. Salesmen hung up.

 

[Ludwig]

You can just say no thanks and put the phone down. Many in tele sales are just doing a job.

 

[tyred]

It is a horrible job.

A lot of what I do is tech support over the phone to our customers but a former manager brought in "product of the month" which anyone who was talking to a customer had to sell whatever he had nominated as product of the month to try and generate some sales. I hated doing it, and as technical type, not a sales man, I found it impossible tbh. It was made worse by the fact that anyone I would normally be speaking to is having problems and possibly not in a good mood in the first place and the last thing they wanted was me trying to sell them something they probably didn't need.

 

[goo_mason]

I picked one up last week and answered the phone with, "Good evening - Fraud Investigation Unit; can I take your name, please?". There was a slight gasp from the other end of the line, and then silence. "Hello - Fraud Investigation Unit; how can I help you?", I said. They hung up. That particular number, which has been calling me almost every day for weeks and which I usually just ignore, has never rung back.

Result!

 

[XmisterIS]

It is a horrible job, I agree, and it's a proper PITA to be on the receiving end of it too, especially when for four days in a row one's evening meal is interrupted by telesales calls from the same company, as has happened to me on previous occasions.

 

[PpPete]

I just ask for the registered address of the company they are calling from, and that of the company they are calling on behalf of. Rarely do I get a satisfactory answer, but on the occasions I do, I thank them politely and tell them that my number is registered with the TPS who will be contacting their employers "in due course". Even the foreign-based call centres run a mile when they hear this.

 

[Melonfish]

Back when i worked for opal telecom i would occasionally receive some sales calls from random companies, something to do with my ddi listed on the net.
anyhoo one day a conversaion went like this.

Telesales guy: hi sir, i'm calling from xxx telecom and we'd like to know if you'd be interested in purchasing our business package, we can guarantee you cheaper calls then anyone else

me: I bet you can't

TS: we really can sir, our deals are excellent.

me: you do know who you've called though right?

TS: um, (some shuffling of paperwork) opal telecom?

me: yes, the clue there is in the name, we're a TELECOMS company we provide phone services for others in fact we're BT's biggest rival.

TS: oh, i wasn't aware

Me: indeed, would you perhaps like to hear about our call packages?


I work in IT but it was still brilliant. i've had a number of them i'll be honest.
i do sometimes get companies ringing us asking if we'd like to outsource our IT department, seeing as they've just phoned us here in the IT department i'm not entirely sure what sort of reception they're expecting from us.
"oh gee yeah, i'll just quit my job to allow you to come in and balls everything up eh?"
pete

 

[MacB]

You can just say no thanks and put the phone down. Many in tele sales are just doing a job.

I might agree if I hadn't taken steps, and paid for the privilege, of having call barring/blocking etc...so the ones that get through now are deliberately circumventing this and are aware that that they are doing so. It's the equivalent of walking up to a front door with a big sign on it saying 'NO COLD CALLERS' but knocking anyway.....they get the reception they deserve.

Are you also aware of just how much they target the elderly and vulnerable, not just the once they'll go in for the kill repeat business.