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Friday, August 11, 2006
Homes and businesses are inundated with calls from telemarketers. It’s become such a problem that even TV sitcoms such as Seinfeld have added the concern into their story lines. While Jerry was able to make us laugh about this pickle, most aren’t hee-hawing when they pick up the phone at home when it happens to them.
My home number has been swamped with calls from someone trying to sell me something for years. Every year, it seems to get worse. The do not call list, known as the Do Not Call Registry, never helped to a noticeably different state and the answering machine still doesn’t prevent the phone from ringing through the day needlessly.
What to do? Get Packet8.
Packet8 offers a business package called Virtual Office. One of the many features of Virtual Office is Auto Attendant. You all know what auto attendant is. When you’ve called Best Buy or some business and it answers immediately and warns us to listen carefully for the menus have changed (talk about a boy cry wolf, I hear this ALL the time!) and then we make our selection by pressing a number on the keypad. Well, you can add this to your home number and then listen to the results. Silence!
See, the trick lies in using the same ammunition as the telemarketers use: computers. When you receive a call from a telemarketer, a computer dialed your number and then transfers the call to an agent when you pick up the call and activate it by saying “hello” or how ever you answer your phone. When their computer reaches the automated attendant, the transfer may or may not occur. If it doesn’t, then the call is dropped. If it does, the agent then hears a menu and figures it’s a business and hangs up. If neither happens, the auto attendant hangs up the line within a specified time frame and then the call is dropped by it.
In the month I have had this on my personal line (I need to answer all business calls and not frighten off potential customers with an auto attendant,) I have not received one telemarketer call. A blissful thing since I would get on the average about five calls a day! Everyday. Friends and family haven’t complained about this, either. In fact, you still need a direct line, so you can add another number and give that out only to a select few.
Once the agents start pressing one to get to our live phone extension, then we’ll have to figure a new trick, but for now, this works great and it will most likely work for you, too!
August 12th, 2006 at 12:22
Only a few special telemarketers are allowed to bypass the DoNotCall list… non-profits, or firms that do business with you, for two examples. Others can get themselves put out of business by the FTC if they violate it.
If you are getting enough calls that you’d hassle yourself and your friends by setting up a software attendant, you need to get the caller’s personal and organizational name, tell them (A) to never call you again, and (B) that you’re reporting their call to the FTC — and then do it: FTC.Gov, methinks. You’ll do yourself AND your neighbors a big favor, and clear the phone lines of those who have no regard for your privacy and the law.