Annoying sales calls
It's my first morning back in the office after a lovely week's holiday in the Lake District, and already I'm feeling grumpy again. Just had a sales call from someone claiming to be from Reuters (not sure whether he really was or not) trying to sell me some expensive business intelligence reports. As I've blogged before, I find unsolicited sales calls deeply annoying, and pretty much the first thing I asked him was "are you trying to sell me anything?", to which he answered that he wasn't. After proceeding to waste 5 minutes of my time, he then tried to sell me something.
Seriously, is there some sales school out there that tells its students that telling blatant and clearly discoverable lies to your potential customers' direct questions is a good way to gain their trust? As I pointed out to my caller in no uncertain terms, it really isn't.
Dear Adam
I absolutely agree with you, I have developed a technique which gets rid of them permanently.
1. Ask them for their full name.
2. Ask them for their Tel number and extension.
3 Ask them for their home address and Tel and mobile Number.
They will say NO
Reply, a very serious crime has been committed at these premises I have Det Superintendent Smith ( or to your Taste) of the Serious Crime Squad standing next to me and all calls to this number are being Monitored I am handing you over to
him as he wants to speak to you.
They will just hang up and never call again.
With kindest regards
Herb Kane
I agree about the sales calls however, that is because business development staff are not oreinted to the clinical science arena and are usually the 10-billionth person to have called...at least the ones I know have expressed this. I work at a small CRO and have been in a spot where I was the caller so I understand that it's their job but...it is near impossible to figure out exactly what a potential client's needs are. BD calls are to offer goods and services to sponsor companies and if your job is to get new business then how else are you going to find out if they have needs or not? The annoying call phenomenon evolved as more and more CRO's emerged and were making those calls. Basically the pharma and device companies get bombarded so how can they keep up will every offer?
Well, Mike, I know it's only their job, but a little basic background research would go a long way.
For one thing, we're registered with the Corporate Telephone Preference Service, so by phoning us with an unsolicited sales call, they are breaking the law. They should know that. Even if they don't, if they're selling business intelligence services, you might think they could manage some extremely basic background research on our company before calling us. That ought to include reading the bit on the contact details page of our website where we say that we never buy anything in response to sales calls.
Anyway, I'm pleased to say that I'm not feeling grumpy any more. I'm just looking forward to the next time one of these people calls so that I can try Herb's suggestion.