I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I have a game I play when telemarketers call. I have a timer on my phone, but it’s more of a scoreboard in these situations. My plan is to keep the caller on the line as long as I can. I figure it’s the least I can do to save someone else from being interrupted during dinner or sex (or dinner and sex). It’s time people started paying me back though, so here are a few tips.
They won’t hang up. As long as you can keep asking questions, they’ll keep answering them. Play confused. Ask for them to repeat things. Ask them what they think about the product. Get sidetracked. Tell them that what they just said reminds you about something that happened to you today. Ask them if their product would have helped in that situation. Give other opinions. Ask if you can be in their focus groups. See how many times you can get them to ask their supervisor something (my record’s three). Ask for directions to their store.
Even with all that, it’s amazing how hard it can be to rack up a good score if you’re not prepared. I used to max out at around 2 minutes, but I’m getting better. My current record is 6:30 (Bell Canada), and I would have beaten that today (UCC Canada) if my phone’s batteries hadn’t cut out at 4:04. They wanted to offer me a visitor pass so I could visit their store, which isn’t open to the general public. I had a decent thing going where I talked about how I would have power over people without the pass, and my girlfriend would respect me more now, and I was working on turning that into a discussion about class systems and communism when the phone died. Much more fun than watching Friends (is that show still on?)
I try to focus my entertainment on people who aren’t getting paid based on their sales, unless I think they’re doing a horrible job, and then I might spend some time talking to them about that. Customer service, retention calls, etc are the stuff to live for.
Wow, do I ever live a lonely life…