My first best friend never applied for the job. It was the first day of school, we were 4 years old, and he happened to be wearing the same shirt as me. That first impression was enough to cement a bond that would endure for years to come. Each friendship that followed had a beginning that was as unique as the individuals involved.
A recent incident has led me to wonder how many friendships in the history of human kind have begun with a dinner time phone call and an automated message? How many relationships can be summarized with “You had me at your car insurance is about to expire”? In an age when first impressions, reputations and indeed, friendships are more important than ever, why do some still consider telemarketing a viable option?
“We have heard that our enemies are posting negative things about us online.”
She stumbled across the end of her statement, quickly scrambling to correct herself.
“I meant our competitors… our competitors are posting negative things…”
She regained her composure, feeling confident that she had adequately rewound the tapes and answered my questions according to the script in front of her.
The woman on the other end of the phone worked in a call center, location unknown. She was flustered because I had answered her phone call much more aware than she had expected. I knew who she was, and who she represented. I knew what she wanted to sell me, and I knew I wanted none of it.
She represented the Cranberry Resort, a hotel in Collingwood, Ontario, who is undoubtedly feeling the effects of the weakened economy. She was calling to offer me a special package that she felt I would be unable to refuse. This offer bears many hallmarks of friendship: the generosity of giving me more for less. Empathy in the realization that budgets might be tighter than they have been in the past. Understanding that everyone needs to get away and relax sometimes. Why then was the prevailing sentiment animosity?
Yahoo review of Cranberry Resort
A bit of history completes the picture. This was not our first interaction. She had, in fact, called me no less than 10 times before, often beginning the call with the dramatic silence all too familiar in dinner time phone calls. I had her number, and I wasn’t the only one. One simple Google search of this phone number resulted in an astonishing amount of information – message boards documenting hundreds of unwelcome and repeated phone calls. Through the power of the crowd, numbers were linked back to the source, their sales pitch, and the very technology that was being used to place the calls. So pervasive was the negative impression that individuals have begun leaving poor reviews of the hotel on Yahoo Travel without ever having stayed there.
These sentiments do not echo friendship. Indeed, the Cranberry Resort is in the business of creating enemies.
Any relationship, especially friendship, cannot be forced. Try calling someone randomly from the phone book and asking them out for coffee – not gonna happen. Ask anyone at a bar on a Friday night; getting someone’s number takes time and trust. And by violating these terms, this hotel had tarnished their reputation. I have never seen their hotel. It might be a wonderful and truly luxurious get away, with a beautiful scenic waterfront view. Seeing their number on complaint forums was the equivalent to seeing it scrawled on a bathroom stall. The relationship was over before it had even begun.
It’s time to change
I tried to engage this woman in some creative brainstorming, but she opted instead to simply add me to their do-not-call list. So I will engage with them here, hoping she at least took the one piece of advice I passed along:
1. Set up a google alert for your brand. If you absolutely must use telemarketing (see #2), do the same for the number that you are using to make the calls. Just because the person you’re targeting doesn’t ever get to hear your brand name doesn’t mean you haven’t annoyed them. Don’t let the complaints add up; an army of sleuths will put the clues together and link the brand to the number, creating an eternal record of your transgressions.
2. Don’t use telemarketing. Are your conversion rates and ROI truly worth the damage in both reputation and mindshare that these disruptive interactions will cause? If you need access to a list, start building your own. Develop relationships with your customers; on facebook or twitter if they are tech savvy – or email and phone if they’re not. Receive permission and earn trust by providing value in exchange for this information.
3. Leverage the friendships you already have – If you have customers who love you, reward them for their loyalty. Extend the offer to them first, and then provide them with a discount that they can share with a friend. Who is a better spokesperson for your brand – your best customer or an uninspired robotic call center employee?
4. Be Creative: Find a way to make yourself truly unique. Provide your customers with the tools to rate and review their room on your website. Encourage them to upload photos of their vacation to a facebook group or a flickr page. Or be truly adventurous and give your product away for free.
Of course, all of these assume that you have a product worth loving, that you truly value the people that you interact with, that you care about others enough for them to care about you. Without these precursors to friendship, your competitors have no need to speak poorly of you, because your former potential customers already have.
Update: Ironically, tonight I received a call from a new number. (559) 402-4501. Once again, a simple Google search uncovers the collective annoyance that these telemarketers are creating. I provided this URL to the agent on the line and asked them to engage with me here if they truly felt they had a compelling product to discuss.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Very insightful post. Btw, your “Cranberry Resort” link doesn’t seem to be working.
Great information. I enjoy your writing style. In this age of the internet and social media, telemarketing really is going the way of the VHS. There are few phone calls I hate more than those ones that give you those seconds of silence while you know a computer is connecting you to someone sitting at a desk in a row of 100 cubicles with a headset and a binder.
You are a great story teller. But, more importantly, I love how you intertwine key take aways for businesses and individuals here too. Good on you.
Keep us posted!
yo.