773-262-6158

I had the UNPLEASANT experience of talking to John Baker (773-262-6158), the owner of Proactive Hold, today. He was soliciting his "sound that you hear when a person is on hold" product. I politely told him my company would not be interested. He screamed at me and said I had no idea what I was talking about (I assume because I wouldn't let him finish his spiel) and then hung up on me. What a great way to run your business and earn potential prospects! I hope he reads this.

Lauren, you are a very unpleasant and vindictive person. There was nothing polite about the way you cut me off. You were talking down to me in a very unprofessional manner and I chose to end the call. I guess you couldn't handle that because then you decided to call back to tattle on me to by boss and  since I am the owner you were robbed of the satisfaction of making trouble for me, you wasted company time to post here. Frankly, you didn't know what you were talking about and I won't deny telling you that point blank after you had thoroughly demonstrated your disdain towards receiving a telephone solicitation. You were trying to tell me you had somebody there who "takes care of that" which is not the case or you wouldn't be playing the radio on hold like a run of the mill beauty parlor or auto body shop. I have no problem getting prospective customers and have a conversion rate that your sales reps can only dream of..

While you have every right to earn a living via telemarketing, please realize many consumers are sick of it and don't want to be called at all. Callees may not want to talk to you and if you persist in keeping them on the line, they're going to hang up on you at some point especially if they've a business to run like Lauren (time is money). As a telemarketer, you need to learn to handle rejection, from hangups to blasting air horns, better.

Anonymous,
The call Lauren complained about was a business to business call. I do not call consumers. Please don't presume to tell me what I need to learn as a telemarketer. A distinction needs to be drawn between telemarketing calls to consumers and business to business sales calls. Sure, Lauren has a business to run and so do I. I should point out that Lauren's business has sales reps who need to make phone calls to prospects unless they are clairvoyant or have learned to develop new customers by osmosis. Cold calls turn the wheels of industry.

When I say "consumer," I wasn't referring to Lauren-at-work or imply your call to her business was to a consumer. Lauren is a consumer in her private life and suffers telemarketing calls like the rest of us and this must affect how she handles both calls at home and at work - it does for me. The fact that Lauren employs telemarketing sales reps, if she does, says nothing about how her reps handle rejection. Your response to her post speaks volumes about yours. Even if "cold calls turn the wheels of industry" is true, they don't have to be obnoxious, do they?

Of course sales calls don't have to be obnoxious. This being the only complaint I know about after six years of calling hundreds of businesses each week, I think,  says that Lauren's attitude played a significant part in the dynamics of the call she complained about.

I didn't say that I think Lauren's business has a telemarketing team. My point is that there is no question that somebody at her organization has to make phone calls to new prospects and established customers. That does not make them "telemarketers" in the sense that the term is used in this forum or mean that they should be treated as such?

My time is divided between cold calls, follow up, and production. Am I a "telemarketer"? I don't think so.
Did the call I made to Lauren's company go wrong? Absolutely. Should you take Lauren's account of what happened at face value or should you factor in the possibility that, at least on that day, she might actually be an unpleasant and vindictive individual?

Congrats on your claim of 1 complaint after 6 years of telemarketing. However, how you count complaints may differ from how I count them so I'm not willing to believe your claim at face value.
Whether Lauren has "sales reps" or "a telemarketing team," or how your work time is divided up, is quite irrelevant. If a business uses the telephone to solicit sales, then personnel performing this task are called telemarketers regardless of whatever else they may do for the business. It is the act of telemarketing that defines them as telemarketers, not any specific job title or assignment. So yes, when you're making sales calls on the phone, you are selling products/services/whatever via telephone so you are a telemarketer. Ditto for Lauren's alleged "sales reps" or "a telemarketing team" and ditto for Lauren's janitor if part of his/her duties is to solicit sales by telephone on behalf of Lauren's business. If it quacks like a duck...
Lauren's response to your telemarketing call is little different from the average frustrated poster on 800notes. Many report simply hanging up in quiet desperation. Some yell at telemarketers in frustration. Some blast them with air horns. Some, like Lauren, call back to complain and/or to ask to be put on do-not-call lists only to find full VM boxes, hangups, abusive/evasive sales reps, managers who can't come to the phone, etc. Do these actions make them unpleasant and vindictive individuals? No, not in my book. They're just people responding normally to being hounded by hangups, legit and legit-but-abusive telemarketers, verbally abusive callers, and spammers and scammers. BTW, I've read a few pages' worth on 800notes of business secretaries reporting rude and aggressive business-to-business telemarketers who demand to talk to top management or owners but won't give any names of calling businesses or admit they're soliciting.
Face it, John, you are a telemarketer. Do you not see how silly your "Am I a "telemarketer"? I don't think so" sounds? You may not be telemarketing all hours of your work day but you are a telemarketer for those hours when you are soliciting sales on the phone. And you don't handle call rejection well.

Okay, fine, Anonymous, anybody's a telemarketer while they're telemarketing and I agree with you that none of things which the posters to 800Notes do to cope with abusive telemarketers makes them unpleasant and vindictive individuals. Being unpleasant and vindictive is what makes a person unpleasant and vindictive.