My previous post’s theme was spontaneous combustion. Now I’d like to go a bit deeper and focus on an act of self-immolation. Yes, you read that correctly.
No matter how you read the results, at the end of the day there is nothing more powerful in generating leads and sales than high-quality, outbound telemarketing. Unfortunately, a lot of folks took the power without the quality, which resulted in the National Do Not Call Registry. it's unbelievable that the government could produce something so effective (though there are exceptions to the Registry, such as exemptions for political organizations).
Bear in mind that there are selected uses, users, and providers of high-quality outbound telemarketing who are a tremendous asset to marketing and customer satisfaction efforts. However, the egregious excesses of the seamy side of the industry hurt everyone.
So, confronted with this palpable demonstration of consumer outrage, the underbelly of outbound telemarketing has now found a new tool – the prerecorded message. The rationale probably goes something like this: We make money talking, not listening. The prerecorded message bulldozes the customer and now they have to listen to us. If they’re not interested, they’ll hang up. People with answering machines will get the entire pitch, and the prerecorded message lowers labor costs, too.
I liken it to the outbound industry’s self-immolation—consumers are breathing fire. Why are these guys dousing themselves in gasoline?
Update: I was out of the office for an hour, returned and had 2 recordings on my voice mail. There's no way to cut them off. Infuriating.
Posted by: Scott Hornstein | June 09, 2006 at 01:57 PM