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Does cold calling even work?
- Thread starter Blade2.0
- Start date
AlteredForms
Banned
Any publicity is good publicity.
I collect VHS tapes
Member
old lonely people sometimes pick up and are desperate for some sort of human interaction so they’re easy targets
dr_octagon
Banned
Caller: Hi, I'm calling from Potato company.
Phone owner: I'm not interested.
Caller: I keel you.
Phone owner: What?
Caller: What?
Phone owner: I'm not interested.
Caller: I keel you.
Phone owner: What?
Caller: What?
AlteredForms
Banned
Fixed that for you.
Soapbox Killer
Grand Nagus
Every logical part of my brain says hell no but if it didn't, we wouldn't have people still getting scammed by The Microsoft Team or Car Warranty polices.
Maiden Voyage
Gold™ Member
Yes, but some people take it too far. We've actually blocked phone numbers and email domains of companies that are unrelenting.
IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Companies that do that generally sell super high margin things, so that's why they pay people $10/hour to sit around cold calling.
You only need a few "hits" here or there for it to be profitable because the thing they are selling has huge margins, or is a contract that lasts months/years.
You only need a few "hits" here or there for it to be profitable because the thing they are selling has huge margins, or is a contract that lasts months/years.
Quasicat
Member
Did insurance cold calling for AFLAC when I got out of college to make a bit of money. It was entirely a numbers game. You call 100 businesses and maybe got one person that was interested, and sometimes that would go nowhere. The ones who were good with it, would wait until shift change and would strike up conversations with employees asking for names of the higher ups and then would call and ask for them directly. Most secretaries were trained to be the gatekeeper and would often times make every excuse on why they did not return their calls.
The problem with AFLAC was that they would hire as many independent agents as they could in an area which would result with businesses hanging up on you.
The problem with AFLAC was that they would hire as many independent agents as they could in an area which would result with businesses hanging up on you.
I'm banking, not telemarketing, but they still make us cold call in the morning. You need to get ten calls before 10am so what I've done is save all the numbers that lead to a disconnected line and do about 20 of those and reuse them every day. I'm a genius.
IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
For me personally.. I would and have never taken a job that cold calls people.
I really wouldn't work any job where I'm hassling people who didn't "sign up for it." If you enter a store for instance... yeah, you expect to be sold stuff. Part of the social contract.
The social contract for random ass people who didn't ask for it? Is to leave them the fuck alone or you are a dick lol
I really wouldn't work any job where I'm hassling people who didn't "sign up for it." If you enter a store for instance... yeah, you expect to be sold stuff. Part of the social contract.
The social contract for random ass people who didn't ask for it? Is to leave them the fuck alone or you are a dick lol
Here it's technically not cold calling because we only call people that are with the bank, but even when I get an appointment, half the time they never show.
BigDeadFreak
Member
This is the best response to cold calling:
IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Yeah I find that slightly annoying but not so bad.
Once your account has a certain amount of money in it, they'll start bugging you to invest it outside of checkings/savings.
And of course refi's and shit.
First world problems lol
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Trogdor1123
Member
FunkMiller
Member
Burglars often try dozens of back doors until they find one that's unlocked.
Same principal.
Same principal.
lostinblue
Banned
Probably as effective as cat calling.
eddie4
Genuinely Generous
My first job was at a 'call' center when I was about 18, which I thought would be answering inbound calls. It turned out to be the opposite. Cold calling with a script to get people to schedule a free consultation for their home siding. The number of people that agreed to do it was surprising. I lasted a good two weeks before I said, "wtf is this shit I'm out." I just couldn't BS people.
Grildon Tundy
Member
Do they not log your guys call audio?I'm banking, not telemarketing, but they still make us cold call in the morning. You need to get ten calls before 10am so what I've done is save all the numbers that lead to a disconnected line and do about 20 of those and reuse them every day. I'm a genius.
Only if they answer
Winter John
Member
I once took a job selling insurance when I was getting straight and trying to become a normal person again. It was for this company called Blackstone. I'd never heard of em but the office was pretty nice. They trained us for a week before putting us on the phones so I guess they weren't total fly by nights. After a couple of days our team leader asked me how it was going. Now for some reason when people ask me my opinion on something I actually tell em what I honestly think. It's a bad habit. It's done nothin but get me into trouble and I don't recommend it to anyone.
Anyway, this guy asks so I tell him that when I was on drugs I did all kinds of scuzzy, scumbag shit to get the money I needed. That being said I never had less self respect for myself than I did sitting in that office, calling up random people and trying to con them into buying some shitty life insurance. It's fair to say I wasn't surprised when I got canned a few days later.
Anyway, this guy asks so I tell him that when I was on drugs I did all kinds of scuzzy, scumbag shit to get the money I needed. That being said I never had less self respect for myself than I did sitting in that office, calling up random people and trying to con them into buying some shitty life insurance. It's fair to say I wasn't surprised when I got canned a few days later.
Nobody_Important
“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
Happosai
Hold onto your panties
It may work if you're cold calling for certain charity organizations and people recognize the inbound number as local (not calling from another state or country).
Cold calling for sales is a joke. I was manager over a call center a few years back that was pushing sales for a field management software (one of the top 3). Agents I trained had to make 250 calls minimum per day for 6-days a week. Now, assuming one of my agents could get their prospect to watch a 20-minute demo and then hand it off to a "specialist" (who was no more than some to close out the 'sale' after said prospect watched the full demo video). Here were the stats on average:
Of 250 dials:
- Over 70 would not answer...leaving us with about 180 that may answer an hang up after they hear the '8-second pitch' ; that then leaves you with about 50 of 250 who you may have a 30-second - 2-minute conversation with per day or less
- Of the 50, less than 2-3 per day would watch the demo
- Of the 2-3 that watched the demo and were offered a plan 'pay today' about 1 or none paid
To answer the big question does it work: No. In the marketing business world I don't know which is less effective for Sales...cold calling or guerilla marketing. But, it's primitive, stains brand names or burns up any reputation a business has and...people don't want cold calls when we all have important calls we have to answer per day. Having that one person call who's "Listen, I work with XX inc. and we work with XX just like you..." Just hang up.
I'll never manage a company like that again. Also, the ugly underbelly of these companies is they hire contractors on to make the calls or set them up with off-shore call centers. Those BPOs that arranged with pay employees on commission only and imagine that no one watches these 'demos'...that means they go home with a base of about $120 per week. They're sold into these jobs telling them: you'll earn commissions over $1K on average per week. Their metrics don't work, retention is horrible/making turnover extremely high and it's stressful dialing people who have been sick of telemarketing calls since the 1980's.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I used to be a nice guy and kind of hear them out first and decline gracefully.
Now, if they dont get the drift and keep on going, I just hang up.
I dont know if this works, but I remember an article saying if you pick up and just dont do anything, the automated robocall or person hearing dead silence will flag your number as abandoned or some shit and wont call again. Not sure if that works.
Now, if they dont get the drift and keep on going, I just hang up.
I dont know if this works, but I remember an article saying if you pick up and just dont do anything, the automated robocall or person hearing dead silence will flag your number as abandoned or some shit and wont call again. Not sure if that works.
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Aesius
Member
Apparently this works with spam. Don't open or delete spam emails (easy enough to do with Gmail) and eventually you'll fall off the spam lists.
Aesius
Member
I worked in the debt collections call center for a payday loan company when I was 18. It paid $12/hr which was pretty good for my area at the time and you could get bonuses if you got enough people to pay their debts. But the job was ATROCIOUS! You couldn't even hear the phone ringing when the autodialer started. Your audio and mic only became "live" at the exact moment they picked up the phone, so you were always on edge waiting for some gruff voice to be in your ear going "HELLO?!"
My goal for the job was to just get through my shifts. I didn't give a shit if people paid or not. If they showed resistance to paying, I would let them off the hook and say I would call back again next week or whatever. Trying to be aggressive during my first couple of weeks was so soul-crushing, and yet some of my co-workers were absolute maniacs on the phone. They were like Mafiosos or something and would lie and threaten people. It was wild. But it worked and they made decent money doing it.
Apparently if you play the sound of a dial up modem into the receiver, their system will flag it as a fax line instead. Not sure how long that trick will last for, since all lines will be moving to VoIP in a few years (BT in the UK have scheduled a switch off for 2025)
I like to talk to them about inane stuff just to waste their time and they hang up on me. So I'm the cold call black hole keeping the rest of you safe.
You are welcome
Keeping a cell number for an area code far far away from where I live now has REALLY helped screen out calls. It should be straight up illegal to mask a number that way but I guess I'm kinda doing it myself (calling from an area code I'm not located in).
You are welcome
Keeping a cell number for an area code far far away from where I live now has REALLY helped screen out calls. It should be straight up illegal to mask a number that way but I guess I'm kinda doing it myself (calling from an area code I'm not located in).
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