Cold Callers in Warmer Climates

I guess it's down to numbers, as with most things in life.

If she's got even a 'lukewarm' list and she books a few holidays, must be worth it to her boss.

I'd imagine a 5 * hotel is expensive. And who's giving out them 5 stars, anyway? The local tourist board? Their mammy?

Having been a salesman for many years I have done my fair share of cold calls.

It may be annoying at times, but the truth is it works.

Let's be honest we all need to sell our products and I have no problem with a company being proactive by calling me to offer their services.

However I do expect the caller to have respect for my time. The simple phrase 'is this a good time to call, or would you prefer I call you later', before they rush into their pitch, goes a long way to making me feel that respect.

Unfortunately the standard of training for most of the salespeople that call on me is pretty poor. I had one a few weeks ago who stopped half way through her pitch because she lost her place in the script.

Not her fault though. It's the fault of whoever sat her at the desk with a telephone and a written sales pitch.

I completely agree. I will, if possible, give them the time of day if they are polite and respectful that it is a cold call. However I also won't waste their time if I won't be buying. Although it is up to their manager to train them, common sense and their own standards of customer service should prevail regardless. Often, they take it upon themselves to be rude or ignorant.

As sales calls go, that's got to a be one of the hardest sells I've ever heard of!

So you need to be in a buying decision mood to book a holiday, and it just so happens Cyprus is your destination of choice! Plus you'll make a decision there and then without chatting to your other half, doing some research, working out when you can have time off..

Personally I wouldn't have thought it's the best use of a sales force, untargeted cold calls. But then I know nothing about hotels..

sjr4x4 you're right. That is a slightly odd cold call, people don't tend to just buy holidays on a wim..

I find the whole concept of cold calling so frustrating. Since we started our business we have had so much junk mail and so any phone calls for things that we would never need or want. I really wish therew as some kind of way that you could go ex-directory to stop them.

I'm not a sales person but have extensive training in linguistics, semantics, language patterns etc so I get 'jolts' of agony and pain when someone is chatting away at a nice rate and rhythm then pause and speak like they are reading off of a card but trying to sound like a 'Jedi Master' - with a sales line that sounds like a version of a cheesey chat up line..

I'm not in favour of cold calling. It irks me.

I detest cold callers- have taken months, nay years TPSing, MPSing my details - frustrating thing is market research - it doesnt come under TPS law - about blinking time it did.

My personal favourite now is to ask for a fee for them to speak to me ( i stole this idea from one of my old bosses)

Them - hi im xxx from xxx company
Me- thats nice
Them - id like to ask you a few questions about xxxx
Me - okay - my fee is