Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

Nobody likes telemarketers, obviously. I've never yet met someone who genuinely enjoyed fielding their calls -- and yet, the Direct Marketing Association chafes at the regulatory pressure being put on them, insisting that they provide a valuable service. Well, probably -- but then, what falls under the category of "Direct Marketing" is a lot more than just the annoying telemarketers.

Anyway, it's interesting to read of the actual tactics used by some telemarketers. Now, this outfit is certainly more shady than most, but a lot of the underlying assumptions and strategies are the same whether they're trying to "cram" my phone service or just get me to buy another three year's worth of TV Guide. The goal is to keep me on the line, with the marketer speaking fast enough and keeping the questions coming quickly enough that I quickly lose track of just what it is I'm answering or agreeing with, et cetera.

I remember a specific call I took last fall. Now, I almost never answer the phone anymore. If I'm online (we still use dial-up) we have an online answering service (this one, if you're interested) that takes messages, and telemarketers don't leave messages because there isn't an actual person doing the dialing -- it's all by computer, and if the auto-dialer detects an answering machine, it abandons the call or might play a recorded message for the machine, which is stupid anyway because the message invariably gets truncated on both ends because the recording is too stupid to wait for the "beep". But for some reason, one day I wasn't online and the phone rang, so I actually answered it. And, when they asked for me and massacred my last name (it's not a tough name, but people encountering it for the first time never pronounce it correctly, which is a convenient tip-off that the person calling is a marketer), for some reason I decided to abandon my usual approach ("He's not here today") and took the call.

I don't recall all of the particulars, but it was a "no obligation free gift" because I'd recently subscribed to some magazine. They only needed to verify my information for the "free gift", which she (the marketer) then went on to describe, listing the items I could choose. All this went by fairly smoothly, I selected the his-and-hers rototillers or whatever, verified the mailing address, and that should have been it.

Yeah, right.

Because that's when she (the marketer) launched into "several other promotional opportunities while my information was being processed". Now, what "processing" was going on is totally beyond me; this was almost certainly a lie to get me to stay on the phone while product after product was pitched. But there was no "Here's Product A, are you interested?" type of thing -- no, the strategy was a lot sneakier, designed around the old sales rule that you never ask a "yes or no" question. So, she (the marketer) proceeded to speak a lot faster, saying things like "I am authorized today, Mr. [Surname] to offer you a one-time promotional price on [something], simply as our way of saying thank you, Mr. [Surname] for accepting your free gift that we talked about earlier in this call. As I noted, Mr. [Surname], this is a very special promotional price which constitutes savings of X off the regular retail price, and I am only able to offer you this price today, Mr. [Surname]. Of course, there is no obligation if you do accept this particular offer. Mr. [Surname], do you use a Visa or MasterCard to pay for the majority of your online products?"

And so on. Very quickly she got me to the point where, if I've done my job as the lamb-like person on the phone and been lulled into a sense of security by her repeated use of the phrase "no obligation", I would read her my credit card number. Luckily, I still had my wits about me, and told her, "This was no obligation. I don't want to buy anything today."

This, though, was interpreted as "I'm not interested in Product A, but maybe you have something else". So, out comes Product B, and another pitch for a special promotional price. Again, I said, "I do not wish to buy ANYTHING today. All I want is that free gewgaw that we discussed ten minutes ago." (The call was, indeed, pushing ten minutes by then.)

"Oh, very well, I understand, Mr. [Surname]. Would you please hold the line so I can turn this call over to my supervisor? He will complete the verification process for your free thingamabobber. Thank you for your time, Mr. [Surname]."

Hold. Hold. Hold. Bad music. Hold.

Then another guy comes on, and what does he do? He launches immediately into another product pitch. By now my humorous curiosity was running into growing annoyance, so I almost immediately cut him off: "I do not wish to buy anything. I was told no purchase was necessary, and I do not wish to purchase anything."

The guy fell silent, and then proceeded to inform me that he needed to get a special authorization code for my "free gift" to then be shipped or whatever. (By now I couldn't even remember what the damned gift was.) He asked me to hold once more, I said fine...and that's when I hung up. Fifteen minutes on the phone with these people, but it really made me aware of telemarketing tactics. They're not about educating the customer, or giving information for an informed purchase, or helping people to make the right buying decision. Telemarketing is simply about numbers and the Law of Averages: Faced with such a large population as the United States, these companies know that they can find someone who's willing to give them the time they need to get the information they need. It's not even about selling, which is a fine profession, no matter what the used-car guys seem to convey. It's about sleight-of-hand.

This is why I flat-out refuse to deal with telemarketers. Not because they call during the dinner hour, or because they're intrusive, or anything else. It's because I am not a customer to them, in the same sense that when I walk into Applebee's for lunch I am a customer to the server and management. And I won't do business with an outfit that doesn't see fit to treat me as a customer.