Telesales

[webofevil]

The telephone preference service, which allows you to avoid being cold-called, expires—it turns out—after a certain period, apparently six months, at which point you have to renew it. You will of course have completely forgotten by the time six months is up, so the first you’ll know of it is when you suddenly get cold-called again, which is what happened to my mother the other day:

“Hallo,” said a chirpy voice. “I’m calling from $company and we sell solar energy products that—”

My mother interrupted him politely. “I’ve already got solar heating, thank you.”

For some reason this upset her caller. “There’s no need to be like that,” he said, affronted.

My mother, surprised, found herself trying to placate him. “But it’s true, I’ve got solar panels installed...”

He would not be reasoned with. “There was no need to be rude,” he snapped.

My mother’s patience saw which way the wind was blowing and made itself scarce for a moment. “Thank you for your concern,” she said icily, and hung up.

Given the sheer amount of abuse I endured when I did my own brief stint in cold-call telemarketing all those years ago—that’s telemarketing, not telesales, by the way; the difference is you’re not reliant on commission, and so can sleep at night—I can confidently state that that man is not cut out for his current line of work.

Comments

[nja.livejournal.com]

Are you sure it expires? I've never renewed, and I can't see anything about a need to renew on the TPS website.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

According to their website it doesn't expire:

16. Do I need to renew my subscription with the TPS?

If you have registered a residential number or a number belonging to a sole trader or (except in Scotland) partnership, you do not need to renew. However, if you have registered a number on to the Corporate TPS belonging to a Limited company, Plc or other large organisation, you are required to renew annually. In this case TPS will send you an e-mail each year to notify you of this. Failure to renew will result in your number(s) being removed from the CTPS data file. Please be aware that if you change your telephone package, obtained broadband or change telephone line service provider for example, we may receive notice from your current/old line service provider that your line has been made inactive. In this case your number would be removed from the file as the service is only intended for live numbers.

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/faq/#sixteen

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

Everyone I know of who has signed up for the service has found themselves suddenly and mysteriously receiving cold calls again after six months. Maybe they don't mean their service to expire, but it does.