Issue 10.11 - Nov 2002

CHEAT SHEET

Telemarketers may be relentless, exasperating, even unethical. But you have to give them this: They’re good. With the help of technology — everything from autodialing software to cheap overseas labor connected by fiber optics — they’ve turned phone solicitation into a $270 billion industry.

The key to the telephonic onslaught is predictive dialing, a breakthrough of the mid-’90s. These systems churn through huge databases of phone numbers, weeding out busy signals and out-of-service numbers, and routing answered calls to agents. They are mercilessly efficient: Out of an 8-hour day, agents can work the phones a staggering 7.2 hours. One loan company calling deadbeat borrowers boosted “promises to pay” by 129 percent.

The systems use a “pacing” algorithm to keep a steady flow of calls going, but there can still be a gap of three or more seconds between your “hello” and the telemarketer’s reply. That hiccup is critical — it’s when many people hang up, and it’s led California and Oklahoma to enact “dead line” laws that make it illegal to use predictive dialers that drop too many calls. More states are drafting similar laws, and soon dropped calls may be banned altogether.

Telemarketers want to cut down on hang-ups, too — they represent lost opportunities. That has driven them toward the latest advance in predictive dialing: IP-based systems. By converting from traditional circuit switches to digital packet switching, a center can increase its hits by as much as 35 percent. Agents don’t wait as long for connections, calls don’t get dropped, and the center halves its long-distance charges.

Eventually, machines may do all the talking. Avaya Inc. says its predictive dialing system is about 80 percent accurate in detecting a greeting message, bypassing the operator, and leaving a prerecorded sales pitch on the answering machines. Only one thing: Now some states are outlawing that, too.

How to Fight Back

Junk mail can be tossed and spam can be filtered, but telemarketing has always had a technological edge. At least until the TeleZapper. The device — AS SEEN ON TV! — promises to erase you from telemarketers’ lists and stop the unsolicited solicitations. And it works, at least until the industry devises a workaround. But why spend $50 for uninterrupted evenings? The fledgling Telemarketing Resistance has banded together online to help you do it for free. Just follow the steps below. — N.M.

1. The TeleZapper fools telemarketers’ autodialing equipment by emitting the ascending three-note special-information tone you hear before, “We’re sorry, the number you have reached has been disconnected.” You can download this tone from the Web. Do a Google search for “sit.wav” to find one of these audiofiles.

2. Open sit.wav in an audio-editing program like Microsoft Sound Recorder. Edit out the second and third notes. (You don’t actually need those, and they’re sure to annoy family and friends.) Save the WAV file.

3. Play that one note on your computer and record it as the first sound on your answering machine’s outgoing message. Follow with an oh-so-witty greeting.

4. Now sit back and screen those calls. Over time, telemarketers will get the “zapping” tone and take you off their lists.

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2002