Andy Rooney's Tips For Telemarketers
(1) Three little words that work are: "Hold On, Please..."
Saying this, while putting 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-beep-beep" tone, you know
it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has
efficiently completed its task.
(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" sales person 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 your # button on the phone, 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.
Since doing this, my phone calls have decreased dramatically.
(3) Another good idea: When you get "ads" enclosed with
your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your
payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk
mail away. 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 costs them more than the regular 37 cents
postage "IF" and when they receive them back. It costs them
nothing if you throw them away? The postage was around 50
cents 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;
make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You
can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to
keep them guessing! Eventually, the banks and credit card
companies will begin getting their own junk back in the mail.
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 e-mail is cutting
into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase
postage costs again. You get the idea!
If enough people follow these tips, it will work----I have been
doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.
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