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Another Voice

Matthew Parris

Wednesday, 23rd April 2008

My heart bleeds for cold-callers — it must be the most depressing job in the world

After the annoyance, however (and as I was getting togged up for my stone table construction again) came a slight but distinct depression. It always comes. I feel sorry to have disappointed someone. I feel sorry for the people who have to make these unsolicited calls for a living. They often sound uneducated, and rarely display the animal enthusiasm of the natural salesman. No doubt they’re paid rock-bottom wages, and have perhaps been tempted into the job by promises of fat commissions on successful sales which never materialise; but at least they’re trying, and I bet they have financial worries of their own to plague them.

Sometimes at dinner parties one hears people joking about how they’ve managed to bait or nettle a cold-calling telephone salesman. ‘Oh, I always say, “Yes, I’m very interested in a new fitted kitchen — maybe we can arrange something — but hold on just a tick: there’s someone at the door...” and then I leave the telephone off the hook until after about ten minutes they hang up, having wasted all that valuable selling-time, ha-ha-ha.’ Very funny. But just imagine (and does a single Spectator reader have to do this for a living?) the awfulness of waking up every Monday with the prospect ahead of a whole week of trying to sell something pointless that nobody wants, and being at best rebuffed and at worst insulted on the telephone, and all for a pitiful wage. You might start off feeling confident, but with each refusal your confidence would sink, and the less confident you sounded the less chance you’d have of ever making a sale.

Your whole employment would consist in bringing out the nasty and irritable side in a random series of strangers, all day. And think how bad you’d feel after you’d dragged to the phone some frail-sounding old lady living on her own and heard at first in her voice the pleasure of receiving a telephone call, and then the dawning disappointment as she realised it was only another salesman.

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Nigel

April 25th, 2008 7:34pm

As you say it's a soul-destroying job and one which only the desparate are doing. I usually always try and be courteous in refusing the product/service unless they are extremely pushy. I recall one cold caller thanking me for being so polite and I felt sorry for all the gratuitous abuse he must suffer. There's nothing big or clever in being foul-mouthed to these people.

Adrian Fry

April 27th, 2008 11:11am

Surely the answer to telephone cold callers is an answering machine. The vast majority won't leave a message.

Pete

April 28th, 2008 5:10pm

I did a year cold calling (when I was 50!). It opened my eyes not just to how rude the British are (especially to my colleagues from India) but also to how gullible enough people are to merit this sales technique.
The company (a well respected one) was devious almost to the point of cheating in its sales technique. The product was, (as Matthew correctly points out) a poor one (Credit Card Payment Protection Insurance).
Matthew and Nigel are wise to be polite. The rudest have their numbers re-entered into the autodialler and the team-leader would often award a prize to the person who spoke next time to the customer if he got him/her to swear or say a particular word. Daft I know, but things like that helped pass the time and mitigate the effect of having a bad-mannered customer on the end of the line.
Both Matthew and Nigel are wrong to believe that the cold-caller is always leading a miserable existence. I worked with a great set of (mainly young) happy, well adjusted people. The working conditions were excellent, the pay okay (commission was top-hole) and the pension scheme, whilst not up to MPs or MEPs, was better than most.

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