So while engaged in a conversation with someone my phone rings with an number I don’t recognize and I don’t answer. A few minutes later the helpdesk gets a call from a sales woman from a major vendor we don’t do business with currently who is looking for me. He screened the call and offered to transfer her to my voicemail, the sale rep insisted she had already left a VM for me already. She pushed to get his email address and he declined saying she needed to talk to me.
Being curious about the random conversation I asked if it was the area code that had just called me and he said it the same area code that just called me. Since it was I found the voicemail and decided to listen to it.
The sales woman left me a message that three people in the office agree sounded like heavy breathing.
16 Spice ups
Nick-C
(Nick-C)
2
Maybe they have seen your pic on the W00t ads and that got them all flustered?
12 Spice ups
ryangoode
(Ryan Goode)
3
I get about 20 sales calls a day. Along with the 20 voicemails they leave, along with the 20 followup calls about the voicemails about the calls.
bobbeatty
(Bob Beatty)
4
haha! maybe it’s one of our, I mean your friends messing with you.
Wasn’t me…
heavy breathing?? Gotta get a video phone!
Ryan Goode wrote:
I get about 20 sales calls a day. Along with the 20 voicemails they leave, along with the 20 followup calls about the voicemails about the calls.
I do too, but most of them articulate a name, company name, and phone number
sounds like she was hitting on you Justin. Maybe she met you at a conference and was using her position at the vendor to have an excuse to call. i think you should investigate.
New Spiceworks marketing plan, pimp out Spiceheads in exchange for advertising…
4 Spice ups
jeremyb
(Kellanved)
9
I get those calls every now and then too, or just someone hammering away on their keys for 20 seconds until voicemail cuts them off.
Do they not know how voicemail works?! Although the heavy breathing and hammering of keys are kind of creepy. It’s like IT’s version of “The Ring” movie. (Or similar creepy movie).
john6020
(John6020)
10
That doesn’t seem too bad a way to start the day:)
I think that you should publish the phone number.
7 Spice ups
I ended up answering when she called back. I managed to render her speechless and confused by asking if she sold products from her biggest competitor. I was fairly insistent that I wanted information from her about other companies products, and each time before asking acknowledged what company she was with. I think I may have broken her…
2 Spice ups
Good job on blowing her mind, Justin!
I push any call that shows “Anonymous” to voicemail. It’s telling just how many of them don’t actually leave a message.
What I want to do, but made the mistake of telling my boss who told me not to, is create a mailbox so when they manage to get through to me it would go as follows:
Me: Hello, this is Martin.
Them: Are you the person responsible for ?
Me: No, let me just transfer you.
[transfer to mailbox where they hear] I’m sorry but our employees have better things to do than listen to your unsolicited sales pitch. If you would like to leave a message please follow the prompts carefully.
Oh, and I encountered a major sales fail today from APC. They sent me an email with “Exclusive Spring Savings Inside!” but all the contact information they have for me dates from before 2006. Talk about digging up old information from your records to drum up new business. #WINNING
1 Spice up
I got a call from a very nice woman at PC Connection who wanted to give me a call because we hadn’t bought anything in a while, the last invoice I could find was from over 7 years ago. Since she was pleasent I put her on my backup vendor list.
All my calls go to voice mail unless I recognize the number. It’s funny to listen to some of them, especially sales people thanking you for downloading their trial version and offering you a good deal on the full version. Problem with that is I bought the full version 2 weeks ago. I guess they need a version of Sales Spiceworks to track their sales…LOL
paul653
(Paul653)
17
I bought some random refurbed phone part from a company about 3 years ago for like $50, and ever since, the salesman calls me monthly to see if I need anything else. I’ve given up trying to talk to him, and everyone knows to send him straight to my voicemail, but he won’t quit calling. I’d feel bad for him, but then he calls me and I’m just annoyed I have to dial into my voicemail to delete the message.
I have come to defend sales people everywhere with a rant for all the haters. Please feel free to ignore it.
Limey wrote:
I push any call that shows “Anonymous” to voicemail. It’s telling just how many of them don’t actually leave a message.
Of course we’re not going to leave a voicemail all the time, we know you aren’t going to listen to it. Sales is not synonomous with stupid.
I have one person I’m calling and before he gives me a chance to say anything, he tells me if he needs me he’ll call me, then he hangs up. Which would be fine, but he’s never taken my number and if he has caller ID he’s not using it very effectively. Otherwise I’d assume he’d notice the out of state number he doesn’t recognize and not pick up the phone.
If he hadn’t hung up on me, I’d have told him Symantec has 3 for 2 promos on endpoint protection, 30 seconds tops. Would that have been of any value? I have no clue because, I don’t know if he uses symantec, but if he’d take 5 min to chat every once in a while I might. That way I might not have called him in the first place today.
If you don’t want unsolicited phone calls then get a company cell phone for all your business and forbid reception from giving out the number. Barring similar extreme measures, they are a fact of life, that neither side likes doing. Trust me I don’t get to work in the morning excited about making a bunch of cold calls. And here is the catch, once your current vendor realizes you’ve stopped accepting those calls and exploring other options, they are going to raise your prices.
Maybe she had a mic issue and need to put in a ticket?
1 Spice up
