Telemarketers on the ropes

CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER ^ | 8/11/2003 | Lance Williams

[xrp]

Popular do-not-call list bringing industry to its knees

Aug. 11 — In the past three months, the hallways at Groesbeck-based Tel-A-Sell Marketing Inc. have become a lot less crowded. CEO Edd O’Connor has been forced to trim his telemarketing staff from 72 to 18.

“I WAS RUNNING a full house earlier this year,” said O’Connor, who also serves as president of the American Teleservices Association’s Great Lakes Chapter, which covers Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan.

One of the big reason for the cuts: the chilling effects of the National Do Not Call Registry and other similar efforts in statehouses across the country.

A month into the sign-ups for the federal Do Not Call list, nearly 30 million phone numbers across the United States have been registered for the list. That number could double by the time the list takes effect on Oct. 1.

The ATA, which is challenging the list in court, said the national list could eventually cause more than 2 million lost telemarketing jobs. The ATA estimated that telemarketers are responsible for $660 billion in sales. The combined effects of do-not-call lists and the movement of jobs overseas have left the industry ailing.

“It’s going to cause significant business problems for this industry,” said O’Connor, who said he expects a pickup in business in early fall. “We’ve got to step back and regroup.”

[Revolting cat!]

WHAT? You're gonna have to look for a real job? Bummer! Too bad trolling doesn't pay!

[Arthalion]

Something in this article stinks, and I don't think it's the slimy telemarketer being interviewed. How exactly has the Do Not Call list impacted this sector? The people who are on the list (including myself) are there because we DO NOT WANT to be bothered by telemarketers. By definition, we are people who wouldn't be buying anything from these pushy nimrods anyway! If anything, the telemarketers should be seeing IMPROVED returns because their call centers will be wasting less time on calls that wont result in sales! How is this costing two million jobs?!?!

And yes, we SHOULD have an opt-out list for spam, and we should be able to opt-out entire domains! People like to claim that spam is victimless, but it most certainly isn't: Where I work, we're in the middle of a $50,000 transition to a new email system that will serve our approximately 4,500 employees. The number of accounts hasn't increased in years, and the amount of legitimate email has been flat for the past two years, but the amount of daily spam has been increasing at a rate of about 300% a year up until this year...when the number jumped to 500% Well over half of the email that our server now processes is commercial garbage, and it'd slowed our server to the point of unuseability (four server crashes in the past six months). So spam DOES cost innocent users REAL money. You know tho the innocent users are? You...I work for a taxpayer funded institution and YOUR tax dollars are buying our new server. Just to keep up with the spam. And this makes sense to you?!?!?

[billbears]

Once again...the big government/nanny state loving Americans find another way to screw their fellow citizens.

Amen to that. I purchased (I know that's going to be a foreign idea to those here that think the government is there to take care of their every whim) a service through a public company (again another foreign idea for those in the 'government will take care of us' growing arm of the Republican party) that costs approxiamately $1.45 a month to block. Do you know I haven't received one call in months from a telemarketer? Amazing thing the market...

[Fledermaus]

Don't let the knee jerkers dis the entire business because some are annoying. But it's more the responsibility of the individual answering the phone.

1) If you are tired of calls from the local newspaper trying to get you to subscribe, call their business office.

2) If your credit card company calls too often, cancel that account.

3) Here's a novel approach: don't answer the phone. If you salivate like Pavlov's dog every time it rings that's your problem. Try caller ID, it's cheap. Try an answering machine. If grandma is dead, you'll know when you check the message in the next 5 minutes and there wasn't anything you could have done about it anyway.

4) Legitimate and wonderful charities raise a lot of their money over the phone. They don't have the knowledge, equipment or resources to do that themselves and thus hire agencies to do the work. These agencies do indeed have millions of workers.

5) This same stupid argument has been going on for decades. It used to be, and still is, junk mail in your box. These same siding companies that call you on the phone also send out flyers in the coupon magazine you get once a month. Are you going to ban that too?

6) Now comes computer Spam. As is usual with our new whiney society, they don't set up different (and free) e-mail accounts for family and friends and other groups, they demand ALL "Spam" be blocked. These whiney morons are those you know that are too lazy or stupid to even keep their own e-mail account tidy. They still have 6 month old e-mail jokes in their inbox, never clear out their send list, etc.

7) So now everyone wants the government to solve the problem of the technological convienience the consumer demands and pays for. What's next? Outlawing door to door salesmen? Outlawing billboards? Outlawing ads on the back of your shopping cart? Sooner or later someone is going to want to ban the business you work for from advertising for customers.

Two words for the whiners: Personal Responsibility.

[Fledermaus]

It's your responsibility to use the e-mails to the best effect.

Once you have a base account on a service or ISP that you can control, only give that out to the closest family and friends.

All the others can be used for other purposes. Who cares what crap you might get from a Hotmail account if you only use that to get WND e-mails or Freeper Alerts or something?

Organize!

[this_ol_patriot]

They had their chance, they could have set up a DNC list themselves. If you requested to be put on the list with one TM they made that number available to all TM's, instead it seems the more you told them to leave you alone the more calls you got. When people had a device that would sense a computer generated call the TM's tried to get around that. They used numbers that caller ID could not identify. You couldn't tell them from a legit phone call. They took every opportunity to disrupt your life and get in your face.

I sleep in the afternoon and evening but still need the phone on and ringable for on-call phone calls. Instead I would be awakened at their whim. I tried a second landline number but they got that number in a few days. I am not going to pay for a cell phone I would never use just to get a peaceful sleep. They only have themselves to blame.

It is pure heaven now that my phone is silent when I sleep except for real emergencies.

[thoughtomator]

Nobody has a right to make a living stealing the peace and privacy of others. The telemarketing industry was as rude and aggressive as legally possible - and more. They rightfully have been told to go to hell by people who want to eat dinners and spend their evenings in peace. Nobody has done a thing to prevent them from doing business with people who actually do wish to do business with them.

I don't cry for email spammers either when they get their pants sued off.

[Cvengr]

Latest tactic is to telemarket from overseas using Internet and a bank of Indian telemarketers. Since call is originating from overseas, they claim they aren't bound by the telemarketing laws here in the US.

Only problem is that nobody understands what the hell they're marketing.

[BlazingArizona]

Well, I hope that all the freaking babies who bitched and moaned for government to save them from the threats posed to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by telemarketers are happy. Up to 2,000,000 more Americans could be put out of work.

This one is! The more of these )&*$#$^%#&(&* bastards are broke and hungry, the happier I'll be.

[Revolting cat!]

Wow, this is certainly the first thread on the subject where the deranged argumentation prevails! So, if you don't want obnoxious salesparasites to tresspass on your property (telephone/household/e-mail) you're a whiner Communist who wants a tyrannical gubmint to change your diapers cradle to grave? I get it now - personal responsibility! Did the California guvnor open up the nuthouses and tell the nuts to run like hell and sign on to Free Republic?

[FITZ]

Most of these jobs were going to be offshored to India eventually.

That's true. I've had some telemarketers who I think were calling from there ---- they think they were speaking English but I don't think they were. It's going to be a disaster for this town, not too many jobs left for those college kids and others ---- some people were trying to work their way up with those telemarketer jobs ---- McDonalds just has so many openings.

[BlazingArizona]

3) Here's a novel approach: don't answer the phone. If you salivate like Pavlov's dog every time it rings that's your problem. Try caller ID, it's cheap. Try an answering machine. If grandma is dead, you'll know when you check the message in the next 5 minutes and there wasn't anything you could have done about it anyway.

Telemarketers actually PREFER you don't answer the phone. When they leave a message on your machine, you have no choice but to hear it. When I come home after having been out for a while, I usually get several of these leeches on my machine.

[Fledermaus]

You know, everyday I go to by mailbox, and mail has been around for centuries, it's full of stuff I don't want either.

I guess I should force the government to create a large, unaccountable bureaucracy to have a "No Mail" list.

Many, many people don't like to look at billboards while driving. Maybe we should force the government to pass a law that will signal the billboard via satellite technology that I'm driving by and use a hydraulic pole to quickly retract it underground.

I would think any company that has 4,500 employees could find and IT staff smart enough to use software and monitor the spam. Much of the spam going into corporate servers is because they have open sites with a simple "contact us" link. They should create a request screen that spam writers don't bother with. I know the sales people are thinking it loses potential customers because of the extra effort, but you have to weigh those factors.

Instead of wanting the government, the least qualified people, to make bad law challenged in our courts to please people just because they are annoyed I would rather they use their power to create a guideline, or licensing, structure for internet sites. For example, porn sites would have to be licensed to an .xxx or .adult URL which is easily blocked in software filters. And we already have laws that concern this type of material in tv, video, movies, magazines, etc.

Sure, there would be lawsuits, but it's an idea that has precedent.

[this_ol_patriot]

Only problem is that nobody understands what the hell they're marketing.

LOL. Much too my disdain I found out the hardway. Imagine my surprise when I came home from work and there was an unemployed Rajah and a caravan of white elephants in my driveway. j/k

[Fledermaus]

My machine has a delete button. Two words and I know it's crap.

The worse are the ones I get from the computer dialer. It shows up as out of area and opens the line. Then it dials the next number without cancelling and I get a message on the machine with, "buzzzzzzzz, buzzzzzz, if you want to make a call, please hang up and dial again".

But I just hit delete.

[Fledermaus]

Indian telemarketers? Are they selling beef jerky and slurpies?

[steve86]

(four server crashes in the past six months)

Most sites using Microsoft server products have that many crashes in a typical day, even without spam.

[billbears]

I guess I should force the government to create a large, unaccountable bureaucracy to have a "No Mail" list.

Well of course you should!!! Sheesh, I just can't imagine the Founding Fathers of this nation sitting around discussing how every time something annoys a citizen of a respective state a new law should be created.

I don't like those little plastic preformed ties on the end of some bread (once you open a loaf you can't get that thing back around to close it) and you have to use a regular twist tie that are found in abundance at the back of at least one kitchen drawer in every kitchen. I think the government should pass a law against those preformed ties too!!

[Tailback]

Up to 2,000,000 more Americans could be put out of work.

Why don't you share what you are smoking?

[usadave]

Up to 2,000,000 more Americans could be put out of work.

2 million? Wow, I didn't know that there were that many of those telemarketing pests out there. No wonder people get so many annoying telemarketing calls.