Comment On The Art of the Cold Call

Wow. I've had people call up asking for all kinds of stuff, but this guy makes them sound like award winners!

Honestly though, this doesn;t seam like much of a WTF to me though. Why is it surprising that someone has poor english skills?

Sadly enough I've worked with enough people that I actually believe this...

I'm going over to the corner to silently weep for the future of the world.

I wonder if I____ K_____ plans to sell to heterosexual people too...

iceburg:

Honestly though, this doesn;t seam like much of a WTF to me though. Why is it surprising that someone has poor english skills?

For me at least, the WTF is that such poor quality communication skills are rarely found in salespeople. Developers? Certainly! Salespeople? WTF?!?

The beauty of outsourcing.

You would think that someone would at least QA the e-mails being sent (since it obviously isn't utilizing their native language).

I have always felt sort of sorry for sales people like this who are "hired" in the sort of way cattle are lined up outside a slaughterhouse and then are given no training and impossible quotas. Not that I have bought from them. It's the company's fault for their awful approach to staffing, not the poor "employee" (lamb for the slaughter) who is just told to sit at the console while the computer dials the phone trying to find a number that is answered by a human.

You would think that someone would at least QA the e-mails being sent (since it obviously isn't utilizing their native language).

To me, an additional WTF is why he spent 15 minutes politely trying to end the call.

If a couple of "I'm sorry, I'm busy right now. Try again later" answers don't work, time to either hang up, or just put the phone down and let the salesmoron talk to the desk. (I don't want to insult all salespeople, just those who cannot be polite)

I got a telemarketer call at work trying to sell stock. I just put the phone down and let him talk to the desk for a while. That company later got in trouble when they called someone else, who turned out to be the regulator for security sales in a state, and they weren't licensed in that state.

I say now that they have this guy's email, enter it in some of the contests that are just collection points for spammers. I wonder, maybe he'd be interested in some money currently stuck in a Nigerian bank?

Calling your potential customer (or apparently their entire company due to the use of the plural?) gay probably isn't the best way to win a sale.

Broken English. Inconsiderate. Persistent.

Sounds like ORACLE is at it again!

I get calls from recruiters who are obviously not native English speakers but worse than that, have little or no knowledge of the geography they are calling about. well, I have no problem really with people not having English as their first language. I don't like off-shore-outsourcing of jobs as much as anyone, but it doesn't bother me if someone has less-than-perfect English skills. (Having known the joy of not having native language skills when I lived in Japan, I can sympathize!) But when someone calls me about a job in a city or town 300 miles away, I have to laugh and say, "I have no interest in moving!" and they don't understand what I am referring to.

Advice for those folks who have outsourced their recruiting efforts to anyone who will try, including to companies in India or Pakistan, etc.: before calling a candidate, make sure you know what part of the state they live in so you don't waste your time. Unless you know someone wants to relocate, chances are they won't even consider a job more than 20 miles away (where I live, they won't consider one more than five, much less 20). It makes the caller look like a dolt when you have to explain to them that, for example, New York is not just the City and its surrounding suburbs, but a larger-than-it-looks state with thousands of sq. miles of land which can take as much as 16 hours to drive across. At the least they should look up phone area codes first before calling and make sure you're within a reasonable distance of a job before calling about it.

Pholks who use the phone for work should at least be operationally fluent in the language.

I don't talk to cold callers for longer than enough time to say "Sorry, the cat's on fire -- gotta go" or "I'm sorry, he passed away a couple of days ago. You can reach his family at the funeral home.".

Unfortunately there have also been a lot of times where I've called a company and have dealt with a CSR who was barely fluent in English. This frustrates me to no end.

Some companies have learned. I called one monolithic company at 1am and the call was routed through to the East Indian office. The folks there spoke perfect English. I was shocked.

That was gay.

i dont get this won, whatz the WTF hair?

Any recruiter worth their weight in sandwiches should be able to type up a google map for "Schenectady, NY to Yonkers, NY".

Unfortunately sandwiches are very valuable.

anon:

Pholks who use the phone for work should at least be operationally fluent in the language.

I don't talk to cold callers for longer than enough time to say "Sorry, the cat's on fire -- gotta go" or "I'm sorry, he passed away a couple of days ago. You can reach his family at the funeral home.".

Unfortunately there have also been a lot of times where I've called a company and have dealt with a CSR who was barely fluent in English. This frustrates me to no end.

Some companies have learned. I called one monolithic company at 1am and the call was routed through to the East Indian office. The folks there spoke perfect English. I was shocked.

Shocked by English from India? You are aware that English is one of the official languages there, right?

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/in.html

ContractorInLivingHell:

...for example, New York is not just the City and its surrounding suburbs, but a larger-than-it-looks state with thousands of sq. miles of land which can take as much as 16 hours to drive across.

I live in Buffalo. I've only been here for a few months and I already know this problem intimately. I've been asked to "just grab a taxi" to NYC.

I think I had to work with this gay once.

iceburg:

Honestly though, this doesn;t seam like much of a WTF to me though. Why is it surprising that someone has poor english skills?

...this coming from someone who confuses "seem" and "seam"

(ps a SEAM is the place on your pants where the stitching holds the fabric together)

I think the WTF is that someone with such poor english skills was put in a position which requires exception communication skills. AND he has no idea about when/when not to contact someone, and uses extremely unprofessional styles like substituting "U" for "you".
And on...and on.

Addendum (2007-01-30 13:26):
oops. typing too fast. I meant exceptionAL communication skills.

Personally, if I get a cold-caller at dinner time (it happens quite frequently in my area, often several in a couple of days from the same place), and the person speaks clear English, and there is nothing good on TV, I'll typically try to cut them off. Some simply accept it and hang up.

For the persistent ones, I'll lead them on and see how long I can keep them going, just to give them a taste of what it feels like to have your time intruded upon and wasted.

IIRC, my personal best is 47 minutes!

nobody:

To me, an additional WTF is why he spent 15 minutes politely trying to end the call.

If a couple of "I'm sorry, I'm busy right now. Try again later" answers don't work, time to either hang up, or just put the phone down and let the salesmoron talk to the desk. (I don't want to insult all salespeople, just those who cannot be polite)

I got a telemarketer call at work trying to sell stock. I just put the phone down and let him talk to the desk for a while. That company later got in trouble when they called someone else, who turned out to be the regulator for security sales in a state, and they weren't licensed in that state.

I say now that they have this guy's email, enter it in some of the contests that are just collection points for spammers. I wonder, maybe he'd be interested in some money currently stuck in a Nigerian bank?

Ha! I used to hand the (corded) phone to my ferret. She'd invariably start dragging it around until it got too tight, then let it go. I wonder what the salespeople thought was going on :-)

Text Messaging is going to kill literacy in America. I see the use of text messaging slang showing up more and more in business corresponences.

My favorite way to handle cold callers:
"Let me get my boss for you. Please hold on, I'll be right back..."
Puts phone on desk.
20 minutes later...
If the caller is still there, give the caller a polite two minutes for their sales pitch then hang up.

The amazing thing is that most people read/write in a second language (that has a familiar character set) with better fluency than speaking. The concept that amazes me is the use of "U" for "you." That is a mistake that would be corrected in first year students.

I have received similar emails from "professionals" who grew up in the USA with English (or American) as their native tongue.

When will people realize that the writing style that exists on the internet, in chat rooms, and SMS is not suitable for business uses?

anon:

I don't talk to cold callers for longer than enough time to say "Sorry, the cat's on fire -- gotta go"

I'm using that!!!!!!

i dnot' unrstandd wat tah WTF iz bout

if U d'nto whant 2 by 'dotn bye


Awesome captcha for my post! "smile"

Will:

I live in Buffalo. I've only been here for a few months and I already know this problem intimately. I've been asked to "just grab a taxi" to NYC.

I had a guy from NYC asking questions about the flying club I run the website for in Rochester NY. He had real problems understanding that there were parts of New York State that were more than an 8 hour train ride away.

This is all I have to say:

unklegwar:

iceburg:

Honestly though, this doesn;t seam like much of a WTF to me though. Why is it surprising that someone has poor english skills?

...this coming from someone who confuses "seem" and "seam"

(ps a SEAM is the place on your pants where the stitching holds the fabric together)

I think the WTF is that someone with such poor english skills was put in a position which requires exception communication skills. AND he has no idea about when/when not to contact someone, and uses extremely unprofessional styles like substituting "U" for "you".
And on...and on.

Addendum (2007-01-30 13:26):
oops. typing too fast. I meant exceptionAL communication skills.

Finally someone gets it.

I've had recruiters ask me to "plz send ur resume".

Do not rush to blame everything to outsourcing. I have worked with people with worst English then me (English is not my first language) and they were customer reps. And one of them was director of customer service where I was programmer. This was in a company in USA (Florida).

America has so many people who do not speak or understand English and have no ambition to learn the language. So why blame outsourcing? Granted chances are the company had outsourced their cold call operations to some country where English is not the primary language but do you know for sure it is outsourced? Jump to conclusion is becoming the motto of some people.

P A U L:

Broken English. Inconsiderate. Persistent.

Sounds like ORACLE is at it again!

Broken English - foreigner or Business Major?

Jethris:

When will people realize that the writing style that exists on the internet, in chat rooms, and SMS is not suitable for business uses?

L8ter?

Captcha: muhahaha

Will:

ContractorInLivingHell:

...for example, New York is not just the City and its surrounding suburbs, but a larger-than-it-looks state with thousands of sq. miles of land which can take as much as 16 hours to drive across.

I live in Buffalo. I've only been here for a few months and I already know this problem intimately. I've been asked to "just grab a taxi" to NYC.

I lived in Rochester for 9 years, but am now back in the Albany area where I grew up. For years I got calls from out-of-state recruiters trying to place people for NYC jobs, having no concept of the fact that Rochester is 5 hours away from, NOT within commuting nor casual interviewing distance.

captcha: darwin ... fitting, I have a feeling those recruiters aren't in the recruiting field anymore.

snoofle:

...I'll lead them on and see how long I can keep them going, just to give them a taste of what it feels like to have your time intruded upon and wasted.

IIRC, my personal best is 47 minutes!

I concur. If you don't have the time, end the call immediately. But when you have the time, keep 'em on the phone. I don't fake interest: I continue to respond "no". However, I let them continue their spiel as long as they want. If we all do this, we might increase the cost of cold calling. The quicker you hang up, the quicker they can bother the next person.

I like to try to make them hang up on me. When I was in college I was in my girlfriends dorm and she got a call for a credit card. I had her hand me the phone and asked if the cards were accepted at bordellos in Nevada. After explaining to her what a bordello was she hung up on me. That was probably the most fun I've had with telemarketers.

It's killing literacy in more places than America. Text messaging is way more prevalent in India, and it is rather disheartening how much these texty shortcuts have entered common, even formal, communication. It's no surprise to find business emails or so with at least a "U" for "you" and a "coz/cuz" for "because".

shadowman:

anon:

Pholks who use the phone for work should at least be operationally fluent in the language.

I don't talk to cold callers for longer than enough time to say "Sorry, the cat's on fire -- gotta go" or "I'm sorry, he passed away a couple of days ago. You can reach his family at the funeral home.".

Unfortunately there have also been a lot of times where I've called a company and have dealt with a CSR who was barely fluent in English. This frustrates me to no end.

Some companies have learned. I called one monolithic company at 1am and the call was routed through to the East Indian office. The folks there spoke perfect English. I was shocked.

Shocked by English from India? You are aware that English is one of the official languages there, right?

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/in.html

One of 12. I'm shocked when I call India and get someone who speaks English and actually speaks it. A good number of the people I've talked to sound like they're speaking hindi with different words, and of course they call themselves Bob.

There is a company here in Toronto who for 2 years would call once every 2 weeks or so to try to sell hardware to my company. Despite the fact we'd never called them. And told them in every conversation to never call back. And that we would never, under any circumstances, EVER buy anything from them, specifically due to their sales approach.

Hanging up didn't work, they'd just call back the next day. At some point, I told them that if they continued to call, I would call the police and make a harrassment complaint. Apparently, that got their attention, and they finally stopped calling - 2 or 3 calls later (and after 2 or 3 more times of being subjected to verbal abuse).

Good telemarketers I have no problem with, but this was like the telemarketing equivalent to date-rape. No means no.

This is going to be a long post, but I shall reproduce exactly a mail that was received by a colleague recently. The subject is industrial Health and Safety.

On regard's to a owner driver on a tipper being ask leave his job!!!
Due to bad practice of safety??????
It seem's to me there was a comuinication problem at that plant to say the least...Because should be working together at all time's and why did'nt the driver feel comfortable in talking to the managerment??
I have been thinking and would like to know what you think????
On all new owner driver's before they come on a company going threw a basic health and safety plan??
I.e watching film's on safety issue's that will concern in there everyday working's.[Company] could give them a basic understanding of there way's of work.
Maybe also try involve them in our company way's,the older driver's could also have to go threw a every two year plan refreshment on health and safety driving and in the plant...
Plus and pratical job's in which they do different taks.If we as a company could give them tickets to show they know what there doing at good level maybe safety would improve less accident's and driver's with approved [company] ticket's for job's like tipper propping.mixer gun out,greasing,tire or wheel change,,,and so on the driver's could build up a file of them self's and [company] staff would know what they can and carn't do plus some people might even get to train them at good standard of work making this company better...
If this is already in place well there you go.....!
[signed on original]

Wow, that's hard to type, but I swear that's what it says!

Here's how a colleague of mine handled a cold call:

"Please get a pen and paper.
Do you have a pen and paper?
Okay, now please write down 'The company [XY] is not interested in our product. We do not need to contact them again.'"

Worked and got everyone involved a chuckle at least.

Telemarketers are annoying, but you typically have them by the balls. If one of them calls and offers a credit card, tell them that you have a card with a 15% APR and would only consider switching if you were offered a 10% APR. The numbers are interchangeable, but try blackmailing them before you hang up.

I almost cut my APR in half and I got some dirt cheap windows (no issues with them yet after 8 years). By telling them specifically what you want, you cut them off of going on and on and on about the POS they are offering.

anon:

"Sorry, the cat's on fire -- gotta go"

NEDM

"Sorry, we already have a contract with another vendor." *click*

I find that it is fun (and efficient) to do something unexpected and out of their script:

1) Do you get a bonus for the number of successful calls you make? yes. Then I think you are wasting both my time and your money.

2) Thank you so much for calling me. I am making statistics about phone advertising. Would you mind answering a few questions? You age, country of origin, revenue, how long have you worked in this position.... thank you very much for your call.

I have only thought of doing 2), but 1) works very well.

> Wow, that's hard to type, but I swear that's what it says!

Hm, so what does it say? Don't get me wrong, I understand all the words, all the misspelled words, and can even reconstruct most of the misplaced words (kind of a word puzzle).

But what is the _message_? O_o

If that's what his English looks like when communicating to a known native speaker (i.e. he didn't get any native to review THAT steaming pile of bad grammar), one shudders to think what his code would look like! 8-o

This reminds me of a -- oh !@#%. The cat's on fire -- I gotta go.

Franz Kafka:

shadowman:

anon:

Pholks who use the phone for work should at least be operationally fluent in the language.

I don't talk to cold callers for longer than enough time to say "Sorry, the cat's on fire -- gotta go" or "I'm sorry, he passed away a couple of days ago. You can reach his family at the funeral home.".

Unfortunately there have also been a lot of times where I've called a company and have dealt with a CSR who was barely fluent in English. This frustrates me to no end.

Some companies have learned. I called one monolithic company at 1am and the call was routed through to the East Indian office. The folks there spoke perfect English. I was shocked.

Shocked by English from India? You are aware that English is one of the official languages there, right?

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/in.html

One of 12. I'm shocked when I call India and get someone who speaks English and actually speaks it. A good number of the people I've talked to sound like they're speaking hindi with different words, and of course they call themselves Bob.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_independence_movement


Addendum (2007-01-30 15:05):
England like to spread the influence back in their day. Guess some people accepted it.

Addendum (2007-01-30 15:06):
their* not the. Where did my edit button go?

captcha: onomatopoeia.. damn.. that's hard to spell..

One possible script to use against telemarketers that would be fun..
"Where did you get this number?" "What's your clearance?" "You're not supposed to be calling this number." "Who's your commanding officer?" "Are you a civilian?" "We're tracing this call, stay right where you are"

I try that but usually they just segue back to the script without listening. I don't think cold callers are usually salespeople, they're just script readers trying to get initial leads to pass on to the salespeople.