“It’s just six quick questions and will take about thirty seconds of your time.”
To this day, I still remember those untruthful lines.
The above lines formed part of my script at an outbound call centre for a mortgage brokerage firm, where I worked for a short period whilst between jobs in 2005. My role was simple – make cold calls to residential numbers during dinner time to ascertain highly sensitive personal and financial information in relation to any mortgages held by call recipients. The data was then analyzed to determine which prospects represented promising leads.
According to the company spiel, the process was just six questions and would take thirty seconds. The questionnaire which then followed involved nine questions and rarely took less than three minutes.
According to the call centre manager, the questionnaire did indeed have only six questions. Yes, there were nine question marks on the page, but some questions had two parts.
Not surprisingly, many prospects did not respond in a positive manner.
A suggested response in the company manual to customer objections was to say that many people found that “that prospect of saving up to $11,000 or three years off their mortgage was worth thirty seconds of their time.”
Naturally, given the ‘cold call’ nature of the contact, neither I nor the firm had any idea whether or not we could actually deliver anywhere near that amount of savings.
A little respect, please
Telemarketing is a legitimate promotional medium. However, it is more intrusive than other forms of promotion, and companies who use it should at least observe some simple etiquette.
Customers deserve the truth. If the call involves nine questions instead of six, prospective customers should be told this up front. If the expected duration of the call is around three minutes, customers should be told this, not that it will take ‘around thirty seconds’. Finally, unless the firm has a sound basis for believing that they could actually deliver savings of the magnitude described above, prospective customers should not be given that promise.
Not to be truthful in relation to any of these matters shows complete disrespect for prospects’ time.
Companies who engage in telemarketing should be truthful about the nature and expected duration of the call.
Prospective customers at least deserve that much.
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