Why is it that the only people who ever seem to make a cold sales call are the ones with nothing much to sell.
In general I try to listen because it would be tragic to turn away a great opportunity to make a good saving or identify a new product but that’s so very rarely what I hear. The rule seems to be the poorer the offer the harder they try to sell it. I think the ones I hate most are the calls where they don’t even know the name of the company let alone the person they are calling. Is this a government sponsored work experience scheme or are people shelling out their own money to destroy the telephone marketing business altogether?
I tell myself that this must work or why does it persist? At least I understand why email marketing bedevils my inbox it’s because it’s so cheap to do, virtually free in fact. The solution to this I once believed was to give email a cost and that would stop it but given the comparative cost of telephone sales and the fact that it continues so wastefully I don’t know even if that would work. My guess is it probably costs about 50 pence per contact minimum for cold calling. On that basis if sending an email was even 2% as successful as cold calling it would make emails equal value for money at 1 pence each and even that is probably 10 times the actual cost of email today. So what’s the answer?
I suppose it’s like the pleasure of taxation just get used to it because it’s not going away.
An interesting post Peter; I have often found the same. The companies that cold call us are never normally selling things that are of interest. It may be that those companies are struggling and therefore need to use telemarketing to boost sales?
Comment by telemarketing — May 4, 2011 @ 12:26 pm
I don’t think telemarketing is naturally an ineffective communication tool. It still depends on the people who talk with the prospects.
Comment by appointment setting — October 21, 2011 @ 12:36 am