Yep, I’m sure everybody knows what I’m on about… it’s those annoying people, that ring just as you’re about to take a bite of your hot dinner … or wake you up/disturb you in the middle of the day, to sell you something you’re not interested in.
I’ve endured it for quite some time now. Somebody rings on the landline phone (thankfully they haven’t touched my mobile), and starts their marketing blurb. Sometimes they’ll ask for a “Mr Longland” … and after further probing, maybe I can get a “D G Longland” out of them (being my father’s phone line, he’s listed in the phonebook, and this is where they get the number from). Depending on my mood, I’ll either be highly synical or flippant, or I’ll play dumb.
Each time it happens though, I still can’t help but think … they’re doing it all wrong. Just because a number is in the phone book … that doesn’t instantly give them the right to use it to make an unsolicited commercial phonecall. At the moment for us here in Australia, there are two options:
- Request our number to be made silent. This would prohibit anyone from publishing your phone number basically. But this wouldn’t stop those call centres that just hit +6173 then throw 7 more random digits on the end. It’s also an inconvenience for people who know us.
- Get added to the ADMA Do Not Call List. Now this will help cull calls from crowds that are a member of this association … but what about others?
I thus propose another solution.
Rather than just calling anyone, then having people opt-out of the service… instead… people should opt-in to receiving calls. This is how it’d work.
- A telemarketing company puts out an advert in the media (radio, TV, newspapers…etc.), listing possible service areas that people might be interested in, as well as a phone number for people to contact for more information. Let’s say for the example, this crowd are in contact with mobile phone carriers, internet providers, mortgage crowds, and a few other companies.
- People who are interested then ring this number. An operator (or a computer) answers, and gives them the rundown of the services available.
- The caller then selects the services they want, along with specifying a preferred contact phone number and times to call.
- The company then adds the caller to their call-list.
This has a number of advantages:
- Their people no longer get abused by people who aren’t interested.
- They pay less to run the companies, because fewer calls are wasted.
- Customers here about the services they are interested in, and may attract more by word-of-mouth.
Disadvantages:
- There’s an additional cost to pay for adverts (which is offset by fewer calls)
- Harder for new players to become established.
Maybe if companies took this approach… fewer people would be needlessly disturbed… and they might become more successful as a result. 🙂
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