Hey there! It is the 4 month that I work on American market, selling software. And I came across with 2 phenomena
1) you, guys, all have voicemails (almost). Do you listen to them? Sometimes, when I call somebody, I hear the voicemail straight after the call. Does that mean that I am in a blacklist?
2) during my 4 months of job, 2 of my customers asked to change the sales person (me). As far as I am a newbie, I probably sometimes not perfect, but in my country I didn’t have such experience at all. I have ever been changed, and I never asked to change a sales person. Is it normal in the USA? Or should I change something in my job? Or should I change the job?
28 comments
I don’t listen to my voicemails most of the time because Google has speech to text so I just read it. I read the first few lines, see it’s a telemarketer or some other type of scam, and delete the voicemail.
>when I call somebody, I hear the voicemail straight after the call. Does that mean that I am in a blacklist?
It can mean that, or just mean that they sent the call to voicemail / ignored the call.
>Is it normal in the USA?
As someone who worked in call centers before, this is normal but for two reasons.
1. The rep doesn’t speak English very well or has a very thick accent that you can’t understand, you ask to speak to someone else who you can understand. Lots of second language English speakers in America or routed to American callers, so asking to speak to someone you can understand is normal.
2. The person isn’t getting anywhere with you and may have a better chance with someone else. Probably not common in some other countries because of different customer service practices, but since customer service is very important in America, getting a different rep by request is normal and usually not a refused request.
Can’t tell you about the change requests, other than they don’t like you for some reason.
As for the voicemail. I can’t tell you theblast time I answered a phone call I wasn’t expecting. Probably 6 years ago at best. Also, I have checked my work voicemail exactly once since 2018 and that was to clear it when I returned to the office after covid. Probably time to clear it again.
On behalf of all Americans everywhere, we don’t want salespersons calling us.
Generally, yes, everyone has voicemail. Most people listen to their voicemails pretty promptly. Sometimes people ignore their voicemail, or ignore specific voicemails if they don’t know how they want to respond. You might go straight to voicemail if the caller doesn’t recognize your number – I can hit a button on my phone that sends every unknown caller straight to my voicemail.
“Changing a salesperson” probably wouldn’t happen all the time, but seems like something that definitely happens sometimes. I might not have a good experience with a particular sales person, or I may decide that they aren’t as familiar as I want with the topic I’m talking with them about, and I might ask to speak with someone else.
In the US “let me speak with your manager” is a phrase you hear a lot when someone is dissatisfied or frustrated with a salesperson. Americans tend to demand a lot from people who are paid to do services for us or help us with transactions.
Do you mean that the voicemail system plays it back for you and offers you the choice to send or re-record? That’s not unusual.
Questions concerning your performance are best directed to your own management. Requesting another sales person isn’t unusual either, but we have no idea why they did so with you.
1. Yes we have voicemail. Most of us do not answer calls from numbers we do not recognize, so we simply do not pickup.
Do I listen? Yes, long enough to know it’s spam and to block the number so it can not call me again.
2. If someone is asking to change, they most likely can not understand what you are saying. They are asking to speak to someone else hoping to understand that person better.
3. This is a not a very good job if you have other options. We don’t like people calling trying to sell something.
Most of us simply will not answer. Even if they do answer, they won’t buy.
We live in America. If we want it, we have bought it already or we will buy it on our own.
We do not trust calls from overseas. You may be a perfectly fine person, but we are not going to buy whatever you are selling, no matter what you do.
1. Nope. And it usually means they see a number they don’t recognize and are declining the call. They may even have their phone set to do that with all unrecognized calls.
2. Haven’t done that because i don’t take sales calls. On the rare occasion I answer because I’m expecting some other call, I politely decline and then just hang up on them if they keep pushing. People HATE sales calls, generally, and I wouldn’t keep that job any longer than I absolutely had to but that’s just me
As a person who worked in sales for the last seven years of my career, absolutely no one wants an unsolicited phone call from somebody trying to sell them things. If this is the strategy of your employer, start planning your exit.
Couple things, Americans are bombarded with sales calls to the point that we don’t answer our phones unless it’s someone we know or a call we are expecting. And are years of scam attempts from Indians and Nigerians, a lot of us have developed a distrust of foreign accents in sales calls. Some of us have all gotten tired all our call centers being located to India and Philippines where people may not have the most understandable accents and “just want a native speaker”.
My voicemail is full. Ohhhhh… so sorry!! You can’t leave a message.
Anyone I actually want to talk to… I’ll answer it, they text me or email me. If I know who it is but I was on the phone or otherwise engaged… I call them right back.
I hope your company is following our laws. I know I’m on the federal ‘Do Not Call List’ and I still get telemarketers calling. So, if I do not recognize the number I do not answer it. I will listen to voicemail but as soon as it becomes apparent that it’s spam I stop and block the number. No one likes spam calls and you really should get a better job.
Cold call telemarketers are bad people. If that’s what you are doing find another career. We have voice-mail so we don’t have to talk to salespeople. I don’t answer my phone if the number isn’t saved. I will listen to voice-mail. If it’s something I want I’ll call back, if not quickly delete it and block the number.
As kindly and nicely as I can admit this: based on your English proficiency in this post, you are not yet fluent in English, and likely have a strong accent as well. If I had to guess, that might be causing those requests to change to a different salesperson…people simply can’t understand what you’re trying to say to them.
When you hear voicemail quickly pick up after only a ring or two, that indicates that the receiver has declined your call. (On an iPhone, for example, you can decline an incoming call by double-pressing the lock button.) This just stops the phone from ringing and sends the call straight to voicemail instead.
1) I listen to voicemail just long enough to know what it’s about. As soon as I realize it’s a sales call, I delete it. I promise you, no matter what it is you’re selling, I don’t want it. And I’m annoyed that you’re bothering me. Going straight to voicemail probably means the phone is off, the person has it set to only allow calls through from recognized numbers, or they “hung up” as soon as the call came in. Unlikely you’re blacklisted, unless your company has called them before, but the reason you went to voicemail doesn’t really matter, they all indicate that this person doesn’t want to hear from you.
2) Asking for a different sales person could be due to a language barrier (such as a heavy accent). It could also be because the person thinks you’re being too pushy. If they’re asking for a different sales person from the beginning, it’s likely they can’t understand you. If they ask for a different sales person after you’ve been talking awhile, your sales tactics might be too aggressive.
If you’ve got a strong accent, it’s likely you came across some asshole.
And if you’re cold calling people – we absolutely hit decline call. I don’t answer cold calls.
Unless you are engaged in previous business with me, I do NOT, at all, want to talk to a sales person. And even if we DO have previous business, if you cold-call me about something, I will ignore you.
Nothing personal.
We *despise* sales calls.
a lot of phones now have services to stop spam (which, as respectfully as possible, is what you’re doing) before it even gets to us. my phone doesn’t even notify me of phone calls from unknown numbers. if you get my voicemail, I will glance at the transcript and delete it when I see it’s spam & then I’ll report you.
Americans get so much spam. it’s such a huge issue. please, god, do not call us.
I have my iPhone set to not ring when a phone number that is not in my contacts calls. I listen enough to the voicemails to decide if the caller is someone I want to talk to. If it is a call from a real estate salesperson about a setting up a viewing of a house I had expressed interest in then I add the person to my contacts and call back. It is is someone who is just calling a long list of people then I ignore it. We Americans get very many annoying phone calls so be prepared for a lot of rejection if you make cold sales calls.
Yes, pretty much all have VM.
No, we don’t all check them. Mostly I don’t use the telephone at all, only person who calls me still is my dad. A text of “call me” is how most phone calls work these days. Otherwise you might have to talk to a telemarketer.
My guess is that you have an accent. Which is why they ask to switch. Either they’re hard of hearing or racist or both. Regardless you did your job. I wouldn’t worry about it.
One thing I’ll add is the reason why we don’t answer sales calls is because these kind of calls have been going on for decades, and over that time pretty much everybody in the country either knows someone or themselves have had a stretch where they get calls every day, multiple times a day, for months or years at a time. And if you do answer, it’s either a trick or something you don’t want/need.
I think it’s safe to say after all that almost every American doesn’t answer phone calls if they dont recognize the number. I was about to say that I’m lucky and don’t get many calls like that anymore but I checked my call history and I literally have a spam call every single day from a different number going back forever. I keep my phone on silent and don’t answer, so I just thought they stopped lol.
Quite simply, we get so many spam calls that many of us don’t pick up the phone anymore and wait to see if they leave a voice-mail. I do listen to my voice-mails but unless it’s my doctor leaving an appointment reminder or my parents trying to get hold of me, or some other similarly important message from someone I know, odds are I won’t return the call.
Calls made to Americans without good cause are regarded as a nuisance. Most of us consider it a form of harassment. In fact I once had a salesman call 4 or 5 times a day for weeks regardless of if I told them to stop. They did that until I threatened to report them for harassment.
Us simply not answering is probably the kindest response you can expect.
I don’t answer numbers I don’t recognize. My phone alerts me to spam.
If I block someone on Reddit, will that block them from my phone too?
Cold calls get a curt “Take me off your list” and a hangup from me. Call again and I’ll get ruder. Nothing of value has *ever* been sold through a cold call.
Americans absolutely hate telemarketers. To the extent that many people think it should be illegal. It’s heavily associated with scams and plain annoyance at being called for advertising in the first place. It’s not so much a personal thing, just that people hate your entire profession enough that they are trying to do their best to dodge you and make your job as difficult as possible. The way I see it, if you are going to make it frustrating to own a phone, I’m going to make it frustrating to do your job.
I thank Google every day that my phone has an automatic Spam detector. It hangs up on spam calls automatically. I haven’t got a sales call in over a year.
Sorry, I know it’s probably not the answer you’re looking for, but if you call me on my private line and I haven’t personally given you my phone number, you’re not hearing from me.
If you are cold calling me, I will go out of my way to avoid your product.
I never answer a number I don’t know, and if a message is left I will listen but if it’s sales and it’s something I wasn’t inquiring about I delete and block number. I (no offense) hate sales!! If I want/need something I’ll seek it out. I don’t like someone randomly calling me trying to sell me something I most likely don’t need.