Thursday 5 April 2012

The confession of a telemarketer

It's a job that people love to hate.
Including herself, confesses Angel (not her real name), a telemarketer.
The 25-year-old, who requests to remain anonymous, describes telemarketing sales as the worst job that she has ever had.
Yet she is still doing it because it is an easy job, says Angel, who has held jobs in the retail and food and beverage industries.
"I am paid to call people and sell them products in the comfort of an air-conditioned room," she says.
"My only job hazard is the mental stress that I get from rude people who scream at me from the other end of the line.
"Hence, it is a good thing that I am just making phone calls to them and not meeting them in the streets or in their offices."
Angel says she would discourage people from going into telesales if they have no plans to carve a career out of it.
She has been in the job for four months and has not moved up the sales ladder much, unlike some of her colleagues who started breaking sales records just one to two months into the job, she reveals.
She declines to disclose the product that she sells, but would only say that she works for a giant telecommunications company.
Every day, Angel starts work at 10am and ends at 6pm. She gets the numbers to call from The Green Book's website.
Angel does not have a formal script to follow when making her calls.
She is merely told to greet the customer before telling them where she is from and what she sells.
The most common reply she gets is "not interested", followed by a rather abrupt dead tone on the line as the other person hangs up.
"When people hang up the phone without giving me a chance to pitch my product, we are told to put them back onto the calling list and call them back another day," she reveals.
Another common response that Angel gets is hearing the receiver shout the competitor firm's name at the other end of the line.
"I cannot understand why they would do that, and I find it quite funny too."
Once, she called a housewife, and the moment she heard where Angel was from, she screamed at the top of her voice "I don't want! I don't want! I don't want!" and hung up the phone.
The men are usually friendlier, she reveals.
"Some of them take their time to chat with me and throw in a few personal questions during my sales pitch," says Angel.
"They ask if I have a boyfriend, and of course, I say "no" if I want to carry on the conversation.
"These men usually buy the product from me and insist that I personally deliver it to them.
"My job does not require me to do delivery as we get couriers to do so."
Angel adds: "I won't tell the customers that couriers will be sent until the sales contract has been signed."
Then, there are the sceptical ones who throw 101 questions back at Angel as they cannot believe in getting such a good deal over the phone.
"These people insist that there are hidden charges," says Angel.
She adds: "It can be very tiring to be constantly talking on the phone for seven hours a day.
"When you are not on the phone and your lips are not moving, it can just mean that you are slacking. I can see my boss frowning at me whenever he notices that I am not on the phone.
"It is challenging to pick up the phone to do cold calls and have to sound friendly when you are in a bad mood."
Angel makes close to 50 calls daily and earns a fixed salary of $1,500 a month. She says she does not get much incentive for closing more deals.
But her more experienced colleagues can earn up to $5,000 a month.
She adds: "You need to be prepared to work very hard to earn that amount of money. I go home right on the dot, but my colleagues stay back to work till 9 or 10pm."
Secrets of the trade:
1- The more calls you make, the better you are.
2- When you are tired, pick up the phone to call your friend instead.
But maintain a straight face so that your boss will not be able to tell that you are making a personal call.
3- Drink lots of water.
When you drink more water, you will tend to make more trips to the toilet. Take those as the little breaks that you give yourself through the day.

1 comment:

  1. Well that is a normal thing as telemarketer me as a telemarketers i enjoy it at part of my job i can say i annoy some people because i offer something that they don't like but despite of that it is still my job.

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