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Re: FF - Telemarketing



My all-time favorite telemarketing call came while I was the buyer for a
store I managed in the pre-big box store days. We sold a lmited range of
office supplies, and so we were able to buy anything we needed wholesale.

I got a call one very slow day from a guy selling office supplies by phone.
After introducing himself, he asked what I was paying for some mechanical
pencil we sold. Not having anything else going on, I decided to have some
fun with him. I asked him to hold the line and I'd go look it up. I took my
time finding the best possible price in my wholesaler's price book. When I
finally came back, he was still there. The poor guy almost fainted when I
told him the end-column wholesale price, which was far under his hot deal.
He asked how I could pay such a low price, and I told him - we buy them
wholesale.

Surprisingly, he didn't get the message the first time around. We went
through the routine on three different products, including the explanation
of how we bought them so cheap, before he finally gave up. He seemed to be
pretty well demoralized by the time I got done with him, and hopefully he
found something more constructive to do for a living.

The aboslute worst was a photocopier supplies telemarketer who called one of
our engineering copier customers, claiming to represent us and to be calling
on our service manager's authority. This &^#& talked someone at my
customer's office into ordering a toner cartridge on the terms that it could
be returned for a handling fee.  The poor soul who placed the order knew
nothing about the actual price of the thing, and was shocked to learn she'd
been had - the telemarketer's price was five times retail, and the "handling
fee" just so happened to be the actual retail price. Of course, it was a
completely useless, improperly recycled piece of junk. When she told her
boss that ->we<- had sold the thing to her, he called us threatening to sue
and promising to take his business elsewhere. We finally managed to calm him
down and together we reported the situtation to the police. Of course, the
crooks vanished before the police could catch them.

Best wishes,

Thomas Berry, Archivist/Web Editor
Historical Construction Equipment Association
16623 Liberty Hi Road
Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
Phone 419-352-5616
Fax 419-352-6086
tberry@hcea.net
http://www.hcea.net



----- Original Message -----
From: "Jill L Schneider" <jschnidr@USGS.GOV>
To: <ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 1:46 PM
Subject: FF - Telemarketing


> This appeared in my inbox this AM - in light of Dean's post, I thought I'd
> share....   :)    ttfn - Jill in Alaska
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>   THREE LITTLE WORDS..
>
>   I suppose some degree of commerce would grind to a halt if telephone
> solicitors weren't able to call people at home during the dinner hour.
>   But that doesn't make it any more pleasant.
>   Now Steve Rubenstein, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, has
> proposed "Three Little Words" based on his brief experience in a
> telemarketing? operation -- that would stop the nuisance for all time.
>   The three little words are "Hold on, please."
>   Saying this while putting down your phone and walking off instead of
> hanging up immediately -- would make each telemarketing call so
> time-consuming that boiler rooms would grind to a halt.   When you
> eventually hear the phone company's beep-beep-beep tone, you
> know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently
> completed its task.
>   This might be one of those articles you'll want to e-mail to your
> friends. Three little words that eliminate telephone soliciting.
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Jill L Schneider
> USGS - Alaska Technical Data Unit
> 907-786-7457
> jschnidr@usgs.gov
> http://alaskaminerals.wr.usgs.gov
>
> A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!
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>
> Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>
>

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

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      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>