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Telemarketing/Sales Calls Gone Wrong - PRweb/Vocus

by overcook
2 replies
We made the mistake in asking about agency pricing with PRweb/Vocus.

The Vocus website is not very user friendly, so we filled out the online form and awaited an e-mail quote.

Instead we had a sales rep named "Max" use the Internet to harvest the number to our sales queue. And then Max proceeded to place 8 inbound calls to us in under 90 minutes.



We serve the local market and were right in the middle of a busy campaign. So when our lines are busy, our system prioritizes calls by area codes. Far away companies like Vocus, in this example, usually roll over to voice mail.

But Max kept calling our sales queue over and over, pushing "0" etc.

What is your experience?

Are larger telemarketing/sales organizations asking their agents to rapid fire call like this until they reach someone?

It is aggressive, but seems counter-productive. I am thinking that these guys must be well funded and only "do things that work".

Right?

This seems over the top.

What am I missing?
#calls #inbound #prweb or vocus #telemarketing or sales #wrong
  • Profile picture of the author kenmichaels
    Originally Posted by overcook View Post

    It is aggressive, but seems counter-productive. I am thinking that these guys must be well funded and only "do things that work".

    Right?

    This seems over the top.

    What am I missing?
    For every minute that they realized you were interested, but are not
    able to contact you, is a minute you are forgetting your interest or
    worse .... contacting or talking to a competitor.

    Having a direct line that some one answers ... is key.

    However the systems that handles those are expensive, large
    require additional lines ... more expense. Plus they are cumbersome
    and break down a lot. And the don't play well with other systems.
    Even tho, that IS what they were designed to do.

    I had one in my office it kept breaking down. We eventually ditched it.
    Now live in-bounds have to have a tsr box number. If they don't
    it is a first contact and those get written down and handed out
    to whoever has the most on the board for that hour as a spiff.

    This also creates the aggressive behavior you are witnessing.
    Because ... all the reps consider those in-bounds as lay-downs.
    ( they aren't really ) but the perception is there, so they all want them.

    Another part is if you don't close one when you get it. You don't get another
    one for a long time.

    So it does create some aggressive behavior, but let me ask you
    would you want your reps any other way?
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  • Profile picture of the author overcook
    > So it does create some aggressive behavior, but let me ask you
    would you want your reps any other way?

    > For every minute that they realized you were interested, but are not able to contact you, is a minute you are forgetting your interest or worse .... contacting or talking to a competitor.

    Thanks for your keen insights.

    I am mixed about this.

    If they would have been just as aggressive with the availability of information, then they would have had a lay down.

    In our case, we ended going with another competitor that was aggressive and user friendly on all fronts. In other words, they were very careful to first answer all of our questions as we asked for them via e-mail.

    And then they started in on us, but not to this degree. In fact, we thought this quite unprofessional.

    I would think your level of aggressiveness would vary based on if you were calling on a company, a contractor or a professional like a doctor or lawyer.

    Surely one must adapt to the situation. And I believe this rep miscalculated, because we had every intention of going forward. But he bungled the follow up...
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