[LINK] telemarketers, aaarrgh

[Roger Clarke]

Howard Lowndes <lannet@lannet.com.au>
>Don't be rude to them, don't waste your and their time, get them off the
>line...

Being unduly rude to them at first blush is itself impolite, granted 
(always assuming that you're a subscriber to Doasyouwouldbedoneby).

But the longer they stay on the line and don't get the hint, the less 
they deserve the politeness, and the fairer game they become.

With tele-surveys, my normal approach is to ask them to look for the 
little box that they are required to tick when the person they call 
gets seriously abusive and generally unpleasant to stay on the phone 
with.  There's usually a pause, then an 'ah' kind of response, and a 
quick conclusion.


>   ...  and let them have a go at another more likely mug punter.

The phrasing of that needs some further consideration.

I've not seen rejection rates for tele-marketing calls;  but for 
tele-surveys, it appears to be typical to have to make 5 calls to get 
1 completion (see below).  There are reasons to think tele-marketing 
could be better, and reasons to think it would be worse;  so I'll be 
charitable, and guess that it's about the same ...

From:
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/PPSwamp.html#CM
"The Commonwealth Privacy Commissioner's 2001 survey, in order to 
achieve the desired 1,524 interviews, suffered 4,925 refusals and 
1,020 mid-interview terminations, for a 1 in 5 success rate. The 
survey contractor stated that "Given the length of interview, this 
response rate is ... similar to response rates of other comparable 
surveys" (PC 2001).
[Thanks to EFA's Irene Graham for the pointer to that data].

-- 
Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

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