Are You Scaring Your Customers Away?


"Hello, is (pause) puh-TREE-shuh home?"

So started my weekend lesson in marketing. It was Saturday afternoon, and started like a typical telemarketing call. Heavy accent, reading a script. I told him Patty wasn't home, I'm her husband, he could talk to me.

At this point, one of two things happens. Either they hang up and try again later, or they read me their script. This guy launched into his script...

As part of a new promotion, he wanted to give me $500 in free merchandise certificates. All I had to do was cover $4.95 in shipping, and I didn't need to give him a credit card number to pay it.

Radar on, full scam alert!

I told him I wasn't interested in participating, and that I wanted off of his calling list.

Legitimate telemarketers know that the magic words in the USA are 'take me off your calling list'; they usually rattle off a toll-free number and move on.

Not this guy.

He badgered me for another five minutes about why I didn't want the fre'e certs. I told him I didn't trust him. He said if I didn't trust him to just hang up. So I did...

The phone rang with the speed of electronic redial. "Why you hang up on me?" he demanded. "Don't you want the five hundred dollars worth of certificates?" I told him no. "You don't deserve them anyway..." he snapped before hanging up.

Did a little research...

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