They call during your dinner hour, wake you up in the middle of your Sunday afternoon nap and even in the morning when you are gulping down your coffee and trying to get out the door. Their phony niceties and polite conversation set you up for hard sells. They won’t take no for an answer. Every response you give only leads to another question. How do they get you to cooperate with them? Easy. You have a natural curiosity about who is calling you. You fear missing an important call or an emergency. You have been trained to be cordial to every caller. They know that and they take advantage of it. Sometimes you buy from them just to get them off the phone. The FREE RIDE needs to be OVER for the telemarketers!
Many people just let their answering machines screen all calls. Others depend on caller ID to determine whether or not they will answer a call. The problem with these tactics is that they are not foolproof. There are some calls you need to take, even though you don’t recognize the name or number. If you do, read on.
First, do not kid yourself about the innocence of telemarketers. They have been thoroughly trained to know how to deal with you. They have response sheets in front of them to know how to respond to any answer you give. While you are answering in good faith, they see you as a challenge, not as a nice person to chat with on the phone. They are under so much pressure to meet quotas that they don’t really listen to your protests for rejecting their offer. They are only scrambling to find an effective way to get you to accept. If you naïvely answer the phone thinking that you are going to have a pleasant conversation with an old friend, get ready to be exploited.
Second, do not feel guilty about being evasive, non-committal or even rude (if necessary) to sales callers. After all, if you meet a street salesman hawking his wares, you say, “No, thank you,” and keep walking. If an unwanted door-to-door salesman comes to your house, you don’t feel embarrassed about saying you’re not interested and shutting the door in his face. Why, then, should you feel any differently about telemarketers? They have no special privileges. They have no right to be on your phone. You are under no obligation to treat them with more courtesy than you would a salesman in any other venue. The RULES have CHANGED!
Third, tape a response sheet (like they do) to a place convenient to your phone and read it slowly and deliberately. Answer none of their questions. NONE! (Unless, in the unlikely event that you are truly interested.) Tell them that you do not accept sales calls for any reason. They will say something like, “Are you interested in saving hundreds or thousands of dollars?” Let an awkward pause follow. This is where you need to decide if you need to get firm or if you should stay passive. Your answer? “I do not accept sales calls for any reason.” If you are creative with words, you can say a lot of things, ask them questions, and make them feel that they are truly inconveniencing you. You don’t have to do this, but you can if you want. If you don’t, you can hang up. Yes. You really can hang up. It’s like walking away from a street hawker. It’s like shutting the door in the face of a door-to-door salesman. It’s not wrong. Again, the rules have changed.
Your personal tranquility must be valued and preserved. You have no reason to allow yourself to be victimized or upset by someone who is paid to call you. Either you value their feelings when they don’t value yours, or you take steps to defend yourself against telemarketers.