Lousy way to win business:
Create the false impression that
you’re a prospective client
It smelled suspicious.
“Getting your services for your advertising and marketing services” was tellingly generic. Prospective clients who have tracked us down and think we might be a fit are usually more specific. And companies like the one this caller represented usually call shops like mine not to retain but to sell services.
Still, I wasn’t sure, so I returned the call. Yep. They wanted to sell me a service.
After hearing out the rep, evenly, politely, perhaps even cheerfully, I said, “In your voice mail message you said ‘we’re interested in getting your advertising and marketing services,‘ quote-unquote. While one could stretch that to be technically true, it created the impression of wanting to retain my company’s services, when that is in fact not at all your intent. I consider that a deceptive practice, and I do not do business with companies that use deceptive practices. Please remove my name, company name, and phone number from your records and do not call me again.”
To her credit, she remained polite. She agreed to remove my data from their records, thanked me, and hurriedly ended the call. I don’t blame her for the hurriedly part. I would have been impressed had she promised to tell her superiors to look into revising their script.