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POWERDIALLERS & AUTODIALLERS

The customer's telephone is for the customer's convenience High-tech solutions in telemarketing. Saves company time and money. But what about the customers?

Now here's a situation: The phone rings. You drop what you are doing and run to answer it. As soon as you answer it goes dead. You dial 1471. "The caller withheld their number". Now what? Is it hoaxers trying to annoy you? Or burglars checking to see if you are out? Or someone in need of help, at the last minute losing courage or even consciousness? It could be ANYTHING, but one of the things it could be is a mismanaged POWERDIALLER. Powerdialling, or autodialling, is OK if used properly, but it can be misused, and this sort of thing can happen.

Incidentally, if you've come here because of porn in computers to do with a site called Powerdialler.com, see at the end of this page!

What is Powerdialling/autodialling?

What happens is, in a telesales office, there are a lot of telemarketing operators phoning people up. But instead of pressing the buttons on a phone, they are getting a machine to dial the number (which saves a few seconds of paid employee time). Nothing wrong so far. Now, to save even more time (and this is where the problem comes) the machine is set up to dial out LOADS of numbers all at the same time. People are rushing to answer their phones, but there aren't enough operators at the company end to talk to them, so those recipient leads who spill-over are just thrown away! Presumably the commercial rationale is that as they withhold the number, the victims can't find out who has annoyed them and it doesn't really matter annoying a customer and totally inconveniencing them in their private life, so long as it saves a few seconds of paid employee time at the company end.

I don't think that's fair, and I think we can do something about it! let's find out who is using BAD POWERDIALLING equipment/techniques and name & shame them!

Note: There is nothing wrong with getting a machine to dial the numbers to save time. What's wrong is where the call then gets cut off because of inconsiderate company policy on HOW the dialling is done!

Don't let them get away with it!

So, who are the culprits? Who do you know who has a machine dialling customers up on a cold-calling basis and then cutting them off!? I'm sure there will be websites exposing such things in a "Hall of Shame" sense.

Now, why is it so bad? Note that I don't condemn all companies for cold-calling and other mildly annoying overcommercialised business tactics. They've got a business to run, so, let them call! (If they are polite, reasonable, and aren't in the phone spam business!). I can listen to what they've got to sell and then if I don't want to buy I can politely say no. But AUTODIAL systems that ring the phone and then put it down just after answering and withhold the number, they ARE a form of automated nuisance calling. This isn't illegal, but it is wrong. It's wrong because it is annoying to people, but also because it is needlessly annoying, and because it is based on a belief that people matter so little that wasting their time and energy is so unimportant that it can be chucked away for the sake of a few seconds of paid-for time at the other end. But there is another aspect, which is that the method is like slash-and-burn methods in the rainforest, in that it destroys the customer-base. Bad powerdialling makes potential customers think badly of ALL companies!

Not today thankyou!

Supposing I've got something to sell, and I go knocking door-to-door and I politely introduce myself to the person answering the door and I tell them in honesty I've got something to sell, and I'm then as about to show off the wares, the door slams in my face. The customer hasn't even seen what's for sale. It might be something BRILLIANT. But the customer slams the door because of bad experiences of door-to-door selling in the past. The bad practices of some agents in the past have damaged the customer confidence and destroyed potential future sales for all. In a way the powerdialler mismanagement is like having sales representatives ringing doorbells all along the street and then running away! How good would THAT be for the future of selling?!

Let's crack it!

Now here's what we can do. Find out who are the culprits. If you know of a company that misuses powerdiallers, let me know. If you work for a company and you know the equipment they use is badly set up so it phones people up and annoys them by cutting them off, find out the manufacturers of the machine and we will see what they have to say about it.

Note that you can ban ALL companies from phoning you, by using the Telephone Preference Service, but this is non-ideal as it stops all commercial calls with no regard for what's good or bad. That is bad for ALL business, not just those businesses who are unfair!

Also, if you work for a company that manufactures or sells Powerdial equipment, perhaps you'd like to tell me your point of view. Perhaps you may be able to help draught a CODE OF GOOD CONDUCT in powerdialling, so that this problem can be solved in future.

This must be sorted out!

If you've come to this page because you are looking to see how to get rid of porn in your computer because of a site called Powerdialler.com, it's a different issue to the problem of autodiallers and powerdiallers. However, I can help! It's a problem known as SPYWARE, and you can get rid of it using various software at the page of Spyware Cleaners. I hope that helps!