I must admit I was a bit stumped for a topic this week, eventually out of desperation so not to miss my self appointed deadline I asked my friends and one of them suggested this. Some of you will know that recently I have been working in an outbound call centre which basically means telemarketing. Now to be fair I do raise money for charities however the concept is still the same. This topic is one close to my heart simply because the job comes with a certain amount of abuse and I think that this is partly due to people forgetting that the one on the other end of the phone is in fact human as well.
Now in the company I've worked at we are a fairly close bunch and the people I met there are amazing. Despite what people think, telemarketers are not the social rejects. People go there for a multitude of reasons. I met one man from England who was travelling the world and stopped to work there because the money was good and the hours were easy before moving off again. Another man because it was what he was really good at, without harassing people. And of course many people who were in the midst of university with huge payments to make. So by no means are these unpleasant people.
Now typical procedure for my company dictated that in order to hang up we needed to get 3 nos from the customer. This means a no to the original ask. A no to the reinforced ask (giving them another reason to give) and then a no to a reduced ask (asking them to give a bit less than originally stated). After this we were to wish them a good day and hang up. Now I don't know if procedures are different for other companies but I'm fairly certain it is similar across the board. Now if you get someone who asks you only once then they are being nice or are just a passive person. A person who does ask you three times is simply trying to do their job and follow procedure. A person who continues to ask you and push is either having a really bad sale day and is just trying to reach target, trying to make a sale and do their job or is being a tad rude.
But the thing that people do forget or do not understand is that it is a job and there are hourly targets to reach. High targets too. Overall about one in every three calls has to be a sale which is a harder thing to do than it sounds. And despite being in need of employees if you cannot reach your targets constantly over a long period of time than you will lose your job. Most people do not last long in a telemarketing position. A long term position for my company is considered only 3 months and anything past that you are put on the honour wall. And for a company that goes through so many employees, let me tell you there are not many names on that wall.
So next time you get a call from a telemarketer, be polite. Try to understand the difficulty of doing your job. Be upfront but don't hang up. Treat them like they are human and don't rant at them just because you can.
Alright, that's my spiel for the week and if you don't here from me by next Sunday then you may have to assume that I've been assassinated by telemarketing ninjas for revealing vital secrets.
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