There’s an easy way to avoid irritating phone conversations with overseas call centres. Asking them to stop doesn’t work. Even if you tell them that the person they’re after won’t be in until after 6pm, they’ll just call again and again at 1pm the next day and the next day and the next. Ask them never to call again and they’ll happily promise to make that entry in your file. Then someone else will call.
But there is a way out, if you have Caller ID.
If the number comes up as unavailable or withheld, the call’s coming from a PBX system so you know it’s a company, not an individual, calling you. If they provide a number, it usually begins 0800, 0870 or 0845 so you can just screen them through to the the answer phone.
But, you never know if it might be a company you’re interested in dealing with if it’s an “unavailable” number, so best pick up the phone in this instance. The trick now is extreme ruthlessness. Say “Hello” and if you don’t get a reply within one second or you don’t hear any sound, put down the phone.
Overseas call centres being overseas have a good one or two second delay before your voice wings it over to them and they can reply, whereas local calls get instant connections.
The other factor we’re accounting for is automated dialling: it’s not the operator at the call centre that’s dialled the number, it’s a machine. Only when the connection is made will the operator be notified that there’s a call for them – something that will take a couple of seconds.
This technique also has another virtue. Every call costs money. There’s a one-off connection cost, followed by a per-minute cost. Pick up the phone and the call centre incurs the cost of connection. If enough of us do it, they could waste a whole lot of money on calls that never get anywhere. Then maybe they’ll stop.