ok I recieved an email (one of those FWD to all your friends ones) about how to stop sales calls and junk mail. However never have I seen such a load of inaccurate BS!
So I thought I would post it here (along with my reply) so that anyone else who has recieved the email will know the correct way to deal with such things - and not to bother trying what the email says!
Email Received (senders details altered to protect her privacy)
>Hi guys, what a great idea im trying it, read below ;-p
>
>On 7/27/05, Tina xxxxxxx <tina.xxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx> wrote:
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> > Tina xxxxxxx
> >
> > xxx xxxxxx
> >
> > Tel: xxxxx xxxxxxx
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> > Email: tina.xxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx
> >
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> >
> > This is good.
> >
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> > 1
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> > Three Little Words That Work !!
> >
> > The three little words are: "Hold on, Please"
> >
> > Saying this, whileputting down your phone and walking off instead of hanging
> > up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more
> > time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.
> >
> > Then, when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-bee--beep" tone,
> > you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset which has efficiently
> > completed its' task.
> >
> > These three little words will help elminate telephone soliciting.
> >
> > 2
> >
> > Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?
> > This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and
> > records the time of day when a person answers the phone.
> >
> > This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real"
> > salesperson to call back and get someone at home.
> >
> > What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to
> > immediately start hitting you # button on the keypad 6 or 7 times, as
> > quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it
> > kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your
> > name in their system any longer!!!!
> >
> > 3
> >
> > Junk Mail Help:
> >
> > When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these
> > "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw out their on junk
> > mail.
> >
> > When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from
> > credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the
> > return envelope.
> >
> > Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It cost the
> > companies more than the regular 30 p postage. "IF AND WHEN THEY RECEIVE
> > THEM BACK. It cost them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was
> > around 50 pence before the last increase and it is according to the weight.
> > In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in
> > these cool little postage-paid return envelopes.
> >
> > 4
> >
> > Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a
> > pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then
> > just send their blank application back!
> >
> > If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything
> > you send them back.
> >
> > You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them
> > guessing! It still costs them 37 pence!
> >
> > The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own
> > junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let
> > them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail and, best of all, they're
> > paying for it......TWICE!!!!
> >
> > Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that email is
> > cutting into their business proits, and that's why they need to increase
> > postal costs again. Get the idea?
> >
> > If enough people follow these tips, it will work - - - One person I know
> > has been doing this for year and now gets very little junk mail.
> >
> > THIS MIGHT BE ONE EMAIL THAT YOU WILL WANT TO FORWARD TO YOUR FRIENDS.
> >
My response
Also another tip might be not to send out junk from your email account (which is to be fwd'd to as many people as possible) from your work account
and even better leaving your work sig in place - isn't that right Tina?
-- Results 1 - 10 of about 623,000 for request callback uk --
^^results from google....heh if anyone this got fwd'd to was a lil malicous they could have her work number ringing of the hook....but of course no-one would ever do that!
oh and this email is full of half-truths. So I wouldn't bother following most of the advice in it.
The actual facts and ways to deal with unsolicited marketing ::
(quite a long read but hey i took the time to type the whole damn thing up so at least give it a glance - lol)
1. The actual cost to a business of an agent hanging on the line is quite small. The phone call will be at a fixed rate independant from duration. So in terms of cost hanging up straight away will cost them as much on their phone bill (and mean your own phone isn't engaged)
But you also have to take into consideration the labour costs of having an agent holding - once again agents are set specific call time targets (and daily sales targets) so they aint going to hang around. So the slight cost is not going to make any difference to over-all performance.
2. This is complete bull. Call centers already know the times when people are most likly to answer the phone...its common sense
1pm - 3pm : lunch time
4pm - 5pm : returning home from school run
6pm - onwards : peak calling time as most people are finished work
what those calls actually are (when you get an empty line) is drop out. Call centers use a predictive dialler to phone numbers on their list. The dialler attempts to predict (clever how it matches it's name huh!? lol) the number of calls it will should place to ensure that every agent has a new call when they hang up on the previous one with as small a delay as possible. However sometimes it gets it wrong and has too many calls waiting and not enough agents free to take them. So the excess calls are dropped. In the UK the maximum amount of dropped calls is 5% per campaign. So for every 1000 calls made it may drop 50 of them.
So bash all the buttons you want when you get one of these calls - wont make any difference the computer is already for all extensive purposes ignoring you. Well at least you better hope it is - if by some fluke it thinks your tone is that of an answering machine most diallers willl then enter you in for an automatic callback within the next 30mins - so well done you just earned yourself an additional call ¬_¬
3 & 4 : Ok will admit that these sort of tactics do cost companies slightly in postage costs and labour hrs needed to sort the actual applications from the crap. But do you think a company just launches a large scale mail campaign on a whim? they will already have performed extensive cost benefit analysis on the projected returns from the campaign - and they wouldn't do it if it posed a signifigant risk. So once again i dont think it will make a bit of difference.
So rather than trying Fad like tricks to rid yourself of annoying sales calls and junk mail why not use the actual proccesses which are in place to stop these activities (uk - am sure the US and other countries have similar things tho)
TPS - Telephone Preference Service [http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/]
Registering with TPS is the easiest way of indicating that you do not wish to recieve calls
and under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (11th December 2003) once you have made such an indication it becomes unlawfull for organisations to continue to contact you.
MPS - Mailing Preference Service [http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/]
Although it is not unlawfull for direct mailing companies to keep contacting you once you have registered with MPS most do respect the consumers wishes and stop once you have registered
and you can go one step further
FPS - Fax Preference Service [http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/fps/]
Aimed mostly at businesses this service is similar to TPS as it makes it illegal for organisations to continue to send unsolicited marketing material via Fax. Although this does only normally effect businesses, individuals are also protected under the same 1999 legislation and can register as well.
All these services are free for individuals (i know some used to carry a small fee for businesses, but am not sure if that has changed) and you can register for each through their websites.
Anyways thats my rant over - just thought would let everyone know not to waste their time with the tactics outlined in the previous email as they do bugger all. I picked up enough durring my time working with BT and running a predictive dialler for a call center to know that =P
and Frances am surrprised at you, all your time working in call centers and you didn't think to mention TPS - you are required by law to provide their number to any person you call if they ask you for it, tut tutlol
anyways back to coding ¬_¬
heh the things i will do to avoid work for a lil while
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