Phone Etiquette for Salespeople & Tele-marketers

If you have been besieged by telemarketers and salespeople before or even by any other unknown callers, then you would have experienced the many types of people and their 'conversation style'. My brother, mother and I have had our fair share of these unwanted callers and truth be told, I have to say I wonder how their company trains them in phone etiquette. Here are some manners I wish 'customer support' people would learn.

• I know that for certain companies, they would never tell their call centres to start with 'Is it convenient for you to talk at the moment, sir/madam?'. The reason behind this is that once the caller asks that, the customer is then able to straight away answer, 'No, I'm not free. Call me later.' Well, it's rude of you to assume that we're free and not ask for permission to set aside our valuable time for you. Thus far, I've only had ONE company whose caller asked that after introducing himself. This doesn't just apply to telemarketers, it's also a good habit to adopt for anyone who has to call people, whether friends or business associates. (1) Just because you're free to talk, it doesn't mean that the person on the other end is free to listen. They may answer the phone but they may, in fact, only have a minute to spare. Put yourself in their shoes and think about that.

• Some callers wouldn't dare to be rude to their customers. This is mostly because they have to introduce themselves and the company so the name and contacts are available, but the main reason behind their politeness is that their conversations are often recorded for 'training purposes'. A telemarketer once called my mom to promote something and she told him over and over that she wasn't interested. He finally yelled at her that she was 'uneducated' and slammed down the phone. YOU are the one calling US, YOU are the one wasting OUR TIME with your job which you are being paid for, we are YOUR CUSTOMERS of which you are trying to sell us something, and that is how you treat us? (2) Should you decide to be rude to your customer, remember that there are now caller IDs, Internet search engines, Internet forums and newspaper complaint pages. A salesman from BMW Glenmarie decided to leave a very rude voice-mail on my phone and I not only called back to chastise him, I went straight to the office in question to make a complaint. Either be polite or risk having your and your company's image ruined.

• Many people on the Net have been complaining, asking and commenting on these MLM companies in Malaysia. There's one in particularly that just pissed me off, peaklifestyle.com or enjoygreatlife.com. Stupidly of me, I filled in my contact number at their website to get more information on their 'home based business', which I totally forgot after that. The woman who called me was brisk and sharp, making an appointment for me to 'meet up with them' without me even knowing who or what they are. At the end of the conversation, I asked where she had actually gotten my contact and she said, "I only have 2 minutes for you." What the hell? To me, you are being dismissive and rude like a sergeant to his wayward soldiers. (3) Today's customers cherish their privacy. Yes, we DO want to know who leaked out our contact and yes, we DO want to know what you're selling before we attend your seminar. When you don't offer at least a little bit of information to peak our interest, why should we believe anything you say? For all we know, when we go to your 'seminar', you might just sell us off as slaves or something. :P

• When we say 'no, we mean 'no'. I had the people of Fitness First calling me up again and again, and there were all different callers. One will call me and I'll tell them I'm not interested, only to have another call me up the next month. (4) You have a customer database, so when a customer says 'no', just jot that down beside their name and move on. If you keep calling the same disinterested customer, you're not just irritating them and marring your company's name, you're also wasting your time, energy and money.

One day, if I'm really irritated, I think I'd do exactly what my brother did; play with them. My brother got so fed up that every single telemarketer who called him received a very long round-about conversation. :twisted: