Telemarketers
 

I'm hoping someone with telemarketing experience will chime in here.

How does this work? Who are the people who are actually responding to telemarketers?

I've worked in radio for a long time. Everytime someone posts about radio on 2+2, there's inevitably a post saying, "OMG, get Sirius, they don't have commercials, it's better." Still, I know that radio has plenty of listeners and plenty of advertisers, so I know it's not yet antiquated.

Given what I just said, I have to assume telemarketing works. Otherwise, no one would be paying people to spend hours upon hours bothering people at home.

My guess is that it's similar to coupons. The response rate for coupons is around 1%. Essentially, you don't expect much repsonse, you just expect enough repsonse to justify what you spent.

(You spend $10,000 on coupons. They are mailed to 100,000 people. You expect that the 1,000 who respond will spend, at least, $10 a piece with you - or $10,000.)

Can anyone add to this? I've always wondered, given that I HATE telemarketers, whether or not they actually make money for the companies they work for. What kind of closing ratio is expected? What type of person reacts kindly to telemarketers? You get the idea, please expound....

Re: Telemarketers
 

Im actually opening up a telemarketing business (kind of), we handle incomming calls rather than outbound, although we will eventually will be doing outbound calls to customers that have called us first to checkup on things.


yes, it is a numbers game, sales people have a sales quota to meet, this depends on the industry, we will push them if they close at 8%, be happy at 10 to 12% and give weekly bonuses for everything over 15%. you call X mount of people, a percentage of X buy your product, your goal is to cut enough costs that the sales outweigh your expenses obviously.

Re: Telemarketers
 

guids,

I think we're talking apples and oranges. Obviously, if someone calls you, there is some interest. Calling them back isn't exactly telemarketing. I'm talking about the people who call me to consolidate my credit card debt, who haven't done enough background check to see that I have no credit card debt. I find it really hard to believe that those types close at 10-12%.

Re: Telemarketers
 

[ QUOTE ]
guids,

I think we're talking apples and oranges. Obviously, if someone calls you, there is some interest. Calling them back isn't exactly telemarketing. I'm talking about the people who call me to consolidate my credit card debt, who haven't done enough background check to see that I have no credit card debt. I find it really hard to believe that those types close at 10-12%.

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I dont know the specifics of other industries, but most if not all have databases upon databases of information that they use to target a specific audience, this is usually done by computer, and perfecting the algorithms to extract the right customers to call up is an evolving process, so that may explain why you get calls you dont need.

we have databases of customers, we send them mailers first (much cheaper than making calls).

eventually depending on how successful we become we will be doing outbound calls based on the database info.

Re: Telemarketers
 

I personally have set a rule for myself. No matter what it is I will NEVER buy anything from spam or a telemarketer. I refuse to encourage that business model to continue. I used to be much nicer to them, but over time you just get so sick of it that now I either hang up on them without saying anything, say No to whatever they ask even when its one of those 100% yes questions like "would you like to make more money" or "how would you like to save money", or just set the phone down and go do something else.

Re: Telemarketers
 

I sold The Arizona Republic newspaper for about 6 days. Straight cold-calling.

Not much to add to this post except that it sucked, which is why I only worked there for a few days.

I sold inbound products for ~1 year and killed it, but eventually I burned out and moved on.

Re: Telemarketers
 

Re: Telemarketers
 

in order to get money for poker i worked at a foundation for people, mainly kids, who suffered from cancer. we offered two packages: the standard was a 365 SEK (symbolic, 1 SEK for each day of the year) but if the customer/whatever neglected that we would offer a 200 SEK deal. in order to maximize the amount going towards helping cancer patients we would not send out any gift packages to the customers, they just got to feel well.

we, the telemarketers, got paid commission wise; this rate was at 20% IIRC. so the small package would put 40 SEK in my own pocket. we were only allowed to work 4 hrs/day bc they told us that we would wear ourselves out otherwise. they were right..its tedious work.

all kinds of ppl agreed to send in money - mostly elderly ppl but also teenagers and middle aged parents. i guess somewhere around 10% ppl i called agreed to buy one of the packages.

i worked at this place for like 2-3 months when one day i was greeted by a "closed due to sickness". a few days later when i got there to work my next shift they told us the cops had raided the place and had taken their records and frozen all the accounts. they told us that they hadnt done anything wrong and that the police had made a mistake. at that point i was fed up with calling people at sunday afternoons so i decided to quit. the next day the raid was in the newspapers and like 2-3 months later it was pretty clear that like 5% of the money went to sick kids instead of ~70% or whatever. oops...

Re: Telemarketers
 

I found this on wikipedia on how it is effective

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An effective telemarketing process often involves two or more calls. The first call (or series of calls) determines the customer’s needs. The final call (or series of calls) motivates the customer to make a purchase.

Prospective customers are identified by various means, including past purchase history, previous requests for information, credit limit, competition entry forms, and application forms. Names may also be purchased from another company's consumer database or obtained from a telephone directory or another public list. The qualification process is intended to determine which customers are most likely to purchase the product or service.

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I imagine the success rate based on that has to higher than we imagine. Additionally I'm guessing the companies using telemarketing save on some traditional advertising and overhead but I don't know for sure.

Re: Telemarketers
 

JB,

As a former financial planner, we were told that X number of calls led to Y number of followups which led to Z face-to-face appointments, which led to exactly one new client. So your response ratio guess is more or less correct. When you factor in the low cost - we were paid a very low "salary" and on a draw - it was pretty easy to financially justify cold calling.

Re: Telemarketers
 

This is kinda offtopic, but since its about telemarketing, what the hell.
Iv had some other ones about pple fking with telemarketeers, but this one is the best:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=un_PjRXV5l8

Re: Telemarketers
 

[ QUOTE ]
I sold The Arizona Republic newspaper for about 6 days. Straight cold-calling.

Not much to add to this post except that it sucked, which is why I only worked there for a few days.

I sold inbound products for ~1 year and killed it, but eventually I burned out and moved on.

[/ QUOTE ]

I telemarketed, making cold outbound calls selling newspapers and vacation packages for two years, ~10 years ago, when I was in high school. I was very good at it -- I made $50k in the summer before college, for example. (And this was before the days all the poker ballas).

Here's how I'd sum it up:

1) probably 95% of my calls went nowhere. A parent wouldn't be home, they'd hang up immediately, etc.

2) I would *never* end the call until the person actually hung up the phone. No amount of "I don't want it, no thank you, bye" would end the call. They had to hang up.

3) Obtaining the financial information was the biggest challenge. People would say "okay, I'll give it a shot" but then stumble over forking over a credit card number. At least 30% of the time their CC# was for a card that was over its limit.

4) In many ways the job sucked. Most people only lasted a few days. It also tended to be a fairly low brow crowd -- I was a high school kid, and most of my workers were basically white trash people in their upper 20s.

5) That said, the only people who made it had a special knack for it. And those lucky people (like myself) raked in the cash.

6) I think things have changed now because there are new laws, such as the do not call list. I'm not sure about that though.

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Telemarketers
 

Since we have a few former telemarketers in the thread, can one of you help me with this: I had one company that called me at least 4 consecutive days, maybe more. Every time, I had just hung up the phone on them without saying anything. Finally the 5th day or so, I told the guy they had called me 4 consecutive days and to quit calling me. He said that since I hadn't told anyone I wasn't interested, they didn't know I wasn't, and that's why they kept calling.

Is that a standard practice? Just keep calling until you are told not to?

On a side note, even after arguing with this guy for a couple minutes, they company kept calling for another week or so, so maybe they were just especially stupid or unorganized.

Re: Telemarketers
 

i used to telemarket in high school. most were outright sales. but free quotes on their insurance and stuff like that. there people defintily intrested in hearing what you say if it's "free" and could save you money.

our expectation wasn't very high.

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Telemarketers
 

James Boston- I used to call for a debt negotiation place, and pretty much all of our leads were off those forms people fill out to win free Xboxes or whatever. Somebody sold them your number, if you want to minimize telemarketing calls give places that you don't think absolutely need your number a fake one.


HeroInBlack- Eh, I'm guess the dude intentionally did not remove you to be a dick.

Most places you want to close a deal or kill a lead ASAP. "Bad" leads(e.g. you consolidate debt, lead has no debt) can sometimes be returned to the vendor for a partial refund. You absolutely do not want to waste your time.

Re: Telemarketers
 

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My advice: Just hang up the phone. Don't listen or answer their questions, everything they say is scripted and designed by smart people to manipulate you, get your money and keep you on the phone...just hang up.

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With the new laws the best advice is now probably to say, "Please put me on your do not call list. I do not want you to ever call me again." Then immediately hang up.

And actually, telemarketers *prefer* that you hang up. If you want to jerk them around, just stay on the phone. You don't even have to say much. Just keep saying "hey, can you hang on one second?"

Re: Telemarketers
 

The following conversation took place last week. I never thought there comes a day where a telemarketer hang up on me.

Telemarketer [with Indian accent]: Hello. Are you xx xx?

Me: No; that's my brother. Can I take a message?

Telemarketer: My name is blah; I'm from Wal-Mart. Congrats, you might have a chance to win 1 millions dollar!

Me: Cool. What do I have to do?

Telemarketer: Are you 21?

Me: No.

Telemarketer: Huh? You're not? Anyone 21 or over in your house?

Me: No. Why?

Telemarketer [talking gibberish]: Thank-you-very-much-sir. You-have-a-nice-day. I'll-call-you-back-later. *dial tone*

Re: Telemarketers
 

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Who are the people who are actually responding to telemarketers?

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the same ppl who make online advertising profitable.

Re: Telemarketers
 

I worked in telemarketing for about 90 days back during the ATT long distance breakup in the 80's. Remember the ballots you had to mark to choose your carrier? I worked for some little carrier that got bought out by Sprint.

I don't remember much about it except it sucked. Hard.

Though part of my 'territory' was Brooklyn; I got to talk to some interesting characters.

Re: Telemarketers
 

[ QUOTE ]
Though part of my 'territory' was Brooklyn; I got to talk to some interesting characters.

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That'll teach you to mess with us!

Re: Telemarketers
 

Lolz. Actually Brooklyn was fun.

"I doan' like AT'nT, but I gotta use 'em, 'cause I only call Italy!"