Cold Calls Leave Me Very Cold Indeed
Enough already!
I work from home. I have calling number display (CND) on my home phone, so I can usually screen calls depending on the number displayed. Unfortunately cold calls from direct marketers have their numbers blocked and so come up as just another "Private caller". To make matters worse, last Tuesday my mobile phone battery went flat so I had to redirect my mobile to my home phone while it was charging. So, of course, that had to be the day I got several cold calls from completely different marketers. And judging by the voices of the callers, most seemed to originate from India. I was under siege as the phone rang every half hour or so, making it hard to concentrate on my work.
In the past I had a neat trick to deal with cold calls from overseas telemarketers. My CND displays "Out of area" for overseas calls. The only legitimate overseas calls I get are from Italy, so I would answer the phone saying "pronto", the traditional Italian way of answering the phone. If it was from someone I knew in Italy, we could proceed with a friendly conversation. Marketers from India or wherever else, on the otherhand, would be on the back foot. They would start speaking in English, but I would continue speaking in Italian ("chi parla?", "cosa vuoi?"). The marketer would soon apologise and hang up. Hooray!
Unfortunately, overseas direct marketers now seem to be using VOIP or some other means to make it look like it's a local call. Such calls now come up as "Private caller", so I can't use the "pronto" trick straight away :( Some people I know do indeed have private numbers, so I have to delay going into the foreign language routine until I've heard the caller's voice. But this doesn't solve the problem of me having to stop what I'm doing to answer the phone.
So I got to thinking. Is it possible to have a programmable answering machine which detects the number, from the Caller ID, and play an appropriate message? Certain numbers would be allowed to ring through. Such a facility would be beneficial for legitimate callers too. For example, say I've stepped out to buy some milk and my uncle calls, the answering machine could play the "I'll be home at 12:30 to help pick the olives". While for anyone else, the message could be the standard "I'm not home right now. Please leave a message". I doubt that I'm the first person to think of this type of scenario. In fact I found a patent for a similar concept,
My current cordless phone is due for replacement, so I might look around for a combined phone/answering machine that can be programmed based on Caller ID.
I work from home. I have calling number display (CND) on my home phone, so I can usually screen calls depending on the number displayed. Unfortunately cold calls from direct marketers have their numbers blocked and so come up as just another "Private caller". To make matters worse, last Tuesday my mobile phone battery went flat so I had to redirect my mobile to my home phone while it was charging. So, of course, that had to be the day I got several cold calls from completely different marketers. And judging by the voices of the callers, most seemed to originate from India. I was under siege as the phone rang every half hour or so, making it hard to concentrate on my work.
In the past I had a neat trick to deal with cold calls from overseas telemarketers. My CND displays "Out of area" for overseas calls. The only legitimate overseas calls I get are from Italy, so I would answer the phone saying "pronto", the traditional Italian way of answering the phone. If it was from someone I knew in Italy, we could proceed with a friendly conversation. Marketers from India or wherever else, on the otherhand, would be on the back foot. They would start speaking in English, but I would continue speaking in Italian ("chi parla?", "cosa vuoi?"). The marketer would soon apologise and hang up. Hooray!
Unfortunately, overseas direct marketers now seem to be using VOIP or some other means to make it look like it's a local call. Such calls now come up as "Private caller", so I can't use the "pronto" trick straight away :( Some people I know do indeed have private numbers, so I have to delay going into the foreign language routine until I've heard the caller's voice. But this doesn't solve the problem of me having to stop what I'm doing to answer the phone.
So I got to thinking. Is it possible to have a programmable answering machine which detects the number, from the Caller ID, and play an appropriate message? Certain numbers would be allowed to ring through. Such a facility would be beneficial for legitimate callers too. For example, say I've stepped out to buy some milk and my uncle calls, the answering machine could play the "I'll be home at 12:30 to help pick the olives". While for anyone else, the message could be the standard "I'm not home right now. Please leave a message". I doubt that I'm the first person to think of this type of scenario. In fact I found a patent for a similar concept,
Programmable answering machine with multiple voice boxes and caller ID.
My current cordless phone is due for replacement, so I might look around for a combined phone/answering machine that can be programmed based on Caller ID.
Labels: telemarketing
posted by Bruno at 3:20 PM [permalink]
