This is the 20th post and the first one which i've actually planned out. Basically, last night i found out that someone on msn works as a telemarketer so i wanted to know quite a few things about it so i asked my questions and then asked if i could put them in my blog. He said yes so here is my interview with my anonymous source:

Me: what percentage of people (on average) would you say decline your survey?

Him: Erm, quite a majority. It depends on the survey that you're doing. If it takes a while then people won't be too keen to do it.

Me: How many people give you a chance

Him: I'd probably say about half but some will let you ring back later.

Me: do you actually ever "phone them back later"?

Him: If we put down that we're to call them later, then someone who's doing that survey is likely to call them back at some point.

Me: have you heard any smart comments from them and if so, what have been the best?

Him: Well there have been arrogant people, I had one today (my second from County Durham) that just went on and on. Fortunately I pushed the wrong button and didn't continue with him. But a lot of people say they're on X-Directory (where they don't expect cold calls), but we use random dialling, which I think is the loophole past it.

Me: oh so do you yourself just type in random numbers or does a computer figure out which ones work?

Him: I have to manually type in numbers for certain options.

Me: so what's the reason for me going "hello" and then a second later there being a burst of noise from the silence and then i hear "hello could i speak to ..... please"

Him: Yeah, I don't know if this is for all call centre systems, but with our one, when the person picks up, it takes about a second or so for our screen to load with the script we have to read out. So if you say hello immediately from picking up, we won't hear it, and we'll have start reading the script, or just ask for another hello if we're not sure who's on the line.

Me: do you ever get "can i have your home phone number so i can call you back at home?" and then you say "no, sorry, i can't do that." and then they say "well at least that way you'd know how i feel."

Him:I've had someone say 'how'd you feel if I were to call you about (topic)'. I wouldn't be stupid enough to give out my personal details. I only say our Call Centre's based in Kent. But I don't see the good side in them being rude, as I could write down their number and make things even worse (though I haven't done).

Me: do you get told to read out your script in an indian accent?

Him: The first time I did market research for another company, I actually did use an Indian accent, because I was calling post offices (owned by Indian's with long names), and I just found it more comfortable to talk that way. But I use my English accent on this job.

Me: do you actually ever personally "phone them back later"?

Him: If we put down that we're to call them later, then someone who's doing that survey is likely to call them back at some point.

Me: Do you ever tell the people on the end of the line when they yell at you "look, it's just my job."

Him: Well, I talk in a more professional manner. I sometimes state my rate of pay if they ask.

Me: what's the weirdest thing you've been asked by someone on the phone?

Him:I don't think I've had any weird requests. Some people ask if they're getting paid for taking part in the research (I didn't know that happened).

Me: and are they?

Him: no

Me: have you ever ended up phoning someone you know?

Him: I've only contacted my own area code once.


So that's everything you wanted to know about telemarketers. They have a script, pretend to be indian and are basically, just normal people.

Next on the agenda is... Entropia Universe. I've been on this quite a lot in the past few days and after a few more days i might be able to move up in the world to the next level. I currently do sweating which makes hardly any money but it's where you have to start (unless you pay them, which i havn't got any money to do but i *MAY* do at christmas). It takes ages to download but doesn't take long to load and what i like about this one is that even though it's a company, they don't make any limits for non-paying people. They just make it hard to start but once you're past that and they've filtered out the people who are lazy and unwilling to pay, it's ok from then on.

This seems like by far the longest post and probably is because of the interview. That's all though. Bye! :D