More on Telemarketing

by D. Foetus

In response to the number of letters received regarding the TeleZapper and similar systems that will "zap" your phone number from a telemarketing system's database, here is some more insight.

Many larger telemarketing, market research, and bill collection companies use auto-dialers coupled with Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) software systems.

It is the job of the auto-dialer to dial, say, ten phone numbers for every human agent that is currently seated in their calling center, knowing that one out of every ten phone calls will be answered.  The number of calls made by the auto-dialer can be, and usually is, automatically adjusted depending on how that 10:1 ratio performs.

For example, if the sample being dialed consists of phone numbers culled from product registration cards, the number of answered calls may be-higher than if the machine is running Random Digit Dialing (RDD) in valid area codes and exchanges, minus already known phone numbers - basically war dialing for unlisted phone numbers.

If you ever get a phone call that shows up on your Caller ID as being from, say, XYZ Research, and it hangs up immediately after you answer, you've received a "nuisance call."  This happens when the auto-dialer has made more calls than there are available humans to patch you to.  Your phone number is now flagged and will receive special treatment - the system knows you are home and answering the phone, but it also knows it just hung up on you.  You will now get another call from XYZ Research in about 15 minutes (the amount of time lapsed is set by the user system-wide), but this time their system will reserve a human before calling you, ensuring that they get to talk to you.

The auto-dialing system will eventually have dialed through the entire pool of samples and it will have pretty much determined which phone numbers are good and which are not.  It can distinguish between non-working numbers (those that answer with the familiar tri-tone followed by a recording of some sort), those that do not ring at all, those that are busy, those that are good (no answer, etc.), and those that are fax/modem/machine numbers.  Each phone number has a status code assigned to it and any bad numbers are resolved never to be called again.

Aside:  Interesting point here is that all the fax/modem/machine numbers will have received a unique status code marking them as such - basically there now exists a pool of phone numbers that have a very high likelihood of being modem numbers.  Just as easy would be to set up a project that runs automatically overnight, dialing strictly 202-xxx-xxxx numbers (if you wanted to find machine numbers in the D.C. area), and have your CATI software just hang up on all good numbers.

Look at your "bad: modem number" list in the morning and you've got an excellent start on your fun for the days to come.  If one has the desire, and access to a larger system, one could easily burn through tens of thousands of phone numbers in a single night.

But back to the TeleZapper vs. auto-dialers and other devices.

For them to work, your phone must actually go off hook and transmit the tone(s).  If an auto-dialer calls your number and your voice mail picks up, the call is immediately transferred to an available agent, who will mark your phone number as known good, but you're not home (answering machine/voice mail answered).  I'm sure you're already ahead of me here, but, the obvious step to take is to record the "bad number" tone(s) as the first part of your outgoing message.  Sure, it will annoy the hell out of your friends and family, but it will kill your phone number in that sample pool if it's being dialed by an intuitive auto-dialer.

Note that I say that sample pool.  Your phone number may exist in myriad sample pools at different companies.  One way to dramatically cut down on telemarketing calls (and market research calls, if you're so inclined, though they are two very different entities with two very different agendas), is to first register the phone number with the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) as wanting to opt-out of telemarketing calls.  Also, explain to any company you do not wish to hear from that you wish for your phone number to be placed on their "do not call" list.  The DMA also allows one to register their mailing address as well as email address as opt-outs to cut down on junk mail and, allegedly, spam email.

Not all companies check their sample against the DMA's opt-out list, and not all maintain a "do not call" list, but any company that wishes to do business in an above-the-board manner will heed your request.  Telemarketing companies can be somewhat sketchier than market research companies - any market research company that wants to stay in business and make money will follow the guidelines for standards and ethics set forth by the Marketing Research Association (MRA), Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO), and other organizations.  A client will likely not do business with a market research company that does not belong to these organizations.

It does take a while for your opted-out phone number/address/email address to trickle down and through the gigantic system that is comprised of sample houses (those that provide the phone numbers, street addresses, and e-mail addresses), and to the thousands of end-users (telemarketers and research companies), but it does work.  A perfect time to do this is when moving and getting a new phone number, but it will have an eventual effect if you're staying put as well.

Another option is to sign up for your local telco's "security screening" plan, if available.  This will require any caller who is blocking their Caller ID info to input their phone number, or the call will not be connected.  One drawback is that some long distance companies relay calls around the country to the closest low-traffic switching point and the Caller ID info is stripped in the process, requiring Grandma to input her phone number each time she tries to call you, since she's on a fixed income and using Jimbo's Phone Company to make cheap long distance calls.

No one will ever be totally free from receiving unwanted phone calls, but there are ways to dramatically reduce them.  As many ways that there are of keeping our phone numbers in the hands of those we want calling us, there are ways of getting around whatever we put in place to try to ensure this.

Surely somewhat ironic to those reading this magazine...