My Life as a Telemarketer

This is my life as a telemarketer. Why I do it, why I hate it, why I like it. It has information, stories, and other telemarketing related thing.

I'll start by first saying for the last six months, or so, I've been working at a telemarketing place in Iowa. We sell magazines. It has its ups and downs. For one if you can make sales, the pay is damn good. If you can't make sales; well, it's not quite as fun. People at my work are sporadically bringing $2000+ bi weekly for hanging out and talking on the phone. It's a decent gig, to say the least.

Let's go to some statistics I took one day. In an average day I make 431 calls. Of those calls, I don't even talk to the person I'm calling 295 times (68.4%). That can be from answering machines (222), wrong number (38), or family telling to call back (35). That means that 51.5% of the calls I make are just answering machines. Of the remaining 136 calls, when I talk to the person, 40 of them won't qualify for the magazine service, and 88 people won't be interested. Of the 88 people who are uninterested, 52 people just hang up, 39 politely decline, and 5 of them will also request to be taken off the call list. Which leaves 8 people. These are the people that go all the way through the script with me, and are transferred over to the closer to complete the order. Typically only one out of four turn overs close. Which means that out of 431 phone calls, only two (.6%) will be sales. This is just a norm though, I've had days where I'll make seven turnovers and seven sales. I've also had days where I'll make 9 turnovers and no sales, and everywhere in between.

A lot of people are curious about telemarketers. One question I get from a lot of my friends: "don't you hate getting yelled at all day?" Actually, I think it's hilarious when people get all pissed off at me. It's the highlight of my working day. I mean to start off with, it's a fucking phone call, how far out of your way are you going? Your phone isn't 15 miles aways. Also, we have to be "polite" so I always politely be a smart ass. My job gets pretty boring, and people bitching is pretty much the only excitement I get, aside from sales. Another thing that comes up in the calls is the person saying that they're on a cell phone and that telemarketers can't call cell phones. How it actually works is that automated dialers can't call cell phones without owner's constent. So first off, nearly ALL telemarketing companies use automated dialers, including my own. The thing is, we get all of our leads from people filling out stuff online, consenting (read the fine print) to sales calls.

The only other good parts of my days, aside from sales and people getting purely furious over virtually nothing is all the names and conversations I have seen/had.

The following is a list of some of the names I have come across:

• Troy Roy
• Infinity Lee
• James Morrison (Diseaced)... Kind of a funny coincidence.
• Kam Lam
• Pookaynatasha Jackson
• Nilvia Navia
• Trivia Turnipseed
• Guiseppe Penessi
• Oluwafeyiske Odeni
• Starburst Greenwood
• Bojangles Lemond
• Nature Parker
• Ladadra Feaginn
• Willie WIlliams
• John Johnson
• Aftab Lam
• Dada Dahn
• Magdeline Steele-Johnson... Get it? Steele-Johnson...
• Nami Wami
• Channdralaka Ohanka
• Faaalu Muao
• Rye Fingers
• Gorajiya Vishnuprasad
• Toya Toy
• Anthony Gayer
• Neon Green
• Hariharasubramanian Padmanabhan... That was a bitch to try to say.
• Andre Vanhinklestein
• Ho Chiong
• Bob Stanky
• Pinkey Hyde
• Kamakahanohano Guirrero
• Gholam Shakerin
• Terry Derry
• Krysta Woodcook
• Harry Cox
• Maria Juanita
• Toni Chestnut... Confirmed
• Eldon Hairyshirt
• Francis Francis... Not a typo, I talked to the guy and confirmed it.
• Chuck Norris... Confirmed (real names Charles, goes by Chuck.)
• Wolf Veillard
• Say Moo... Another one that is confirmed.

Some of these are only on here for their difficulty to pronounce, others because of a rhyming scheme or phonetic reason, others because of words in the English language, and some I'm sure are just fake (I have my suspicions on Harry Cox).

Here are some of the conversations I've had. (Prior info needed: we set them up with a sweepstakes, which is real, and go through some qualification/classification questions prior to asking them to buy magazines).

"So do you have a credit card or debit card through one of those companies?" "Uhh... I think, I'm not sure" (Woman). (Mans voice) "My wife gets confused on the phone. We're not interested..."

I tell the guy about the sweepstakes "I don't think I qualify... I'm not a legal citizen."

Guy calls in... "I haven't gotten my magazines yet. They were supposed to be here in 3 days; it's been 3 days." "Well, have you checked you mail today?" "No." "Well, sir, it might be in there today." "Okay... I haven't checked my mail in like 3 days."

"I'm going through a lot of changes right now. I have to change my name name... my birth date, so I can't really do any business right now."

"Hello, you have reached the number in which you have dialed... Leave a message."

"SO do you have one of those cards?" "No..." "Alright, sorry about that. You wouldn't qualify for the million dollar sweepstakes then." "So did I win that $10,000?" "Well, it's a sweepstakes for one million dollars, and I said you can be a CONTESTANT, but you don't qualify without the card." "Okay, thank you. Mind over matter."

"What kind of work do you do?" "I'm unemployed." "Alright, and are you currently married?" "Yes." "Okay then, what kind of work does your husband do?" "I have no clue..."

"Hi, you've reached Kariann. You're beautiful. Have a good day."

"Hi, you must be special. You've reached my voicemail."

"Hello, is Melissa there?" "Uhh... She's a nine month old baby, so yeah she's around. What can I help you with?"

"And what's your age?" "No, I cannot tell you. It is a secret... I am busy right now. Bye."

"This is Samantha K. Congratulations! Leave a message after the tone." Her last name didn't start with 'K.'

"No purchase necessary?" "Absolutely free of charge sir." "So there is no fees." "No fees at all. It's no purchase necessary." "No fees at all?" "Correct" "Nah... I don't think I'm interested."

"Thank you for calling Tustin High School, home of The Killers."

"And what's your e-mail address?" "b-e-e...e-e-e..." "Ok...?" "Alright, thank you." Click.

"So what's e-mail address?" "samantha, the number 2, 't' as in 'tiger', 'a' as in 'apple', 'n' as in 'knife'."

"Hello this is Ben with VMS, did you receive a call from us?" "No, y'all called me."

"Do you have American Pervert?" "No, the closest thing to anything like that we have is Playboy." "Yeah, I'll take Playboy." "Alright and you get one more here, so what else do you like?" "You know me, I like woman, black women, and sick shit." "We have Better Homes and Gardens...?"

"Is that 'four' like the numerical four?" "No, it's the number four."

"This is Milton. I love you. Leave a message."

"Hello, Frank?" "Yeah... unfortunately."

"Some other guy already called, and he was asking me about my banking information. If you're planning on asking any banking question, you can just stop talking now." (Long pause) "And I don't want to give out any of that information." (Long pause) "So put me on the 'Do Not Call List". (Longest Pause). Click.

Any questions on anything telemarketing... I probably wont be able to answer, I'm no expert. If it's just about my day to day in the world of telemarketing, feel free to comment.