Calls that leave you COLD!

DUBAI - Unwanted telemarketing calls are intrusive, annoying, and all too common.

Just when you are expecting an important international call, or engaged in a serious discussion, or maybe even sitting down to dinner, or parents are reading to their children, the last thing you want is a call from a stranger with a sales pitch.

And if you think you can cut short the call, think again.

They beg, plead and run their spiel almost without a pause and short of being rude and slamming down the phone, there's pretty little you can do.

Cold calls from sweet voices is becoming a menace and there seems to be very little one can do to avoid it - or stop it.

It's not in the least surprising then that the number of complaints against the telesales operators calling up at odd hours to promote their products is increasingly on the rise.

People complain about the erratic hours at which these calls are made, which may be during meals, important business meetings or just some housework waiting to be finished.

"My business is the heaviest during the morning hours which requires my complete and absolute attention. But many a time I receive calls from hotels or banks asking me if I am interested in a particular scheme and my first instinct is to strangle the neck of the person at the other end of the phone," said Nitin Sabharwal, a Dubai-based businessman.

The modus operandi of these operators is quite simple. A database of telephone numbers is loosely compiled through a number of sources such as the Internet, telephone directories and personal references.

Once the database is complete, operators then proceed to call up potential customers, normally between 9am to 1pm and then again in the early evenings to interest them in the various offers.

People say there's no way to know when to expect such calls as they may come at any given time without prior notice.

"I need to take my afternoon siesta without which I'm a total wreck for the rest of the day. But its difficult to do so as I'm constantly interrupted by these irritating calls," said Ram Lakhiani, a Public Relations Officer.

Also, often these operators don't do their homework before calling up customers and fail to generate their interest, partly due to misplaced calls.

Kamaneh Akhlagh, a student at the American University of Dubai (AUD), said: "I never really pay any attention to such calls which are mostly to promote credit cards as I don't earn enough to have one on my own. So mostly, I ignore such calls as they don't really interest me."

Genuinely interested customers are many a times put off by the wrong timing of such calls.

"Our corporate group is regularly interested in buying a lot of these memberships offered by hotels and clubs but sometimes the timing of these calls is all wrong. For instance, I play squash in the evenings and that is my only 'me-time' where I do not want to be disturbed, but I can cite many instances where I have received such calls and have acted uncharacteristically rude with the operators," said Subramanium Aiyer, a chemical engineer.

The pressure to perform and to achieve unreal targets forces these operators to call up at all hours regardless of the inconvenience caused to the customers.

"I have to sell nearly 40 credit cards per month in different categories and I can only achieve my target if I contact everybody in my database at different times. I know it may be irritating at times, but I have to do it if I want to keep my job," said Mira Kumari, a tele-sales operator with a leading bank in Dubai.

Also, unlike direct sales where there is a human face to the offer, it is much more difficult to persuade people over the phone in the case of telesales.

"I been snubbed by people over the phone endless number of times as it is very difficult to persuade them to switch over from their present company to a new one over the phone. In direct sales, at least you can show them the literature to back your claims... But in telesales, all you have is your voice," said Radhika Bajaj, a telesales operator with a leading bank.

Tele-sales is a field traditionally dominated by women as many companies as a policy do not employ men as they fear that it may hamper their sales.

"It is much more harder to snub a woman than a man, and this is what we try to capitalise on when we hire women," disclosed a source at a leading bank.

But this may sometimes backfire as customers refuse to talk to an operator solely on the basis that she is a woman.