Phone Calls
Complaint
JG
Country: United States
So far, this is the second call from this company within a week. The call tonight came in at 8:04 pm
Caller ID says "Lester, Inc." and the phone number is 606-833-0105. When my answering machine picked up, the caller hung up - same as last time.
I am on the Do Not call list.
Caller ID says "Lester, Inc." and the phone number is 606-833-0105. When my answering machine picked up, the caller hung up - same as last time.
I am on the Do Not call list.
Comments
My saying this doesn't excuse Lester Inc and other telemarketers from ignoring the DNC rules nor does it excuse the state and federal governments for enforcing the DNC in an ineffective manner.
Across 2006 we did a statistical study capturing employee time wasting associated with inbound telemarking calls. The results were like this:
One inbound telemarking call wasted on average:
7 minutes of direct employees time (which I as a business owner pay for)
1.3 minute of indirect employee time (which I also pay for)
With the size of my business in 2006, that resulted in the following calculations:
17 hours of direct employee time per year.
4.14 hours of indirect employee time wasted per year.
------
21.14 hours per year per employee wasted.
Average hourly wage here in 2006 was $29.50 so the total dollar value assigned to wasted employee time per year was $623.63.
In the year we did this study, 2006, I had 16 employees and telemarketers in effect "stole" $9978 and some change out of my pocket.
Direct Employee time wasted is the time the telemarkter has one of my employees on the phone thus preventing them from doing their work.
Indirect Employee time wasted is the *additional* time employees spend on their breaks (outside for a smoke, standing by the water cooler, etc) complaining to other employees about how annoying telemarketers are, often with other employees joining the discussion thus extending their breaks past what is typical, while complaining about telemarketers.
As most of you have found, calling state and federal governments results in a really slow machine that eventually will take care of the problem but not without extreme effort and continual follow up. As a business owner, this could easily eat up hours of my time throughout a given year and produce numbers much like the above in addition to what we discovered with our study.
Our solution? I added a feature to our phone system called "Internal DoNotCall". This works like so:
A telemarketer calls my business, and upon reaching an employee, the employee presses *90 on their phone. This adds the telemarketer's caller ID (name and number) to the internal DNC database, and terminates the call immediately.
Whether the telemarketer calls back instantly or next year, my phone system finds them in the internal DNC list and routes the caller to a 'dead extension'. This dead extension has no features enabled so it does not take messages, ring a phone, or allow the caller to escape to another extension/switchboard/IVR. They have only two choices - listen to the play-only greeting of that extension, or hang up. Nothing else they do produces results.
And our play only greeting is 30 minutes of the most badly played bagpipe music you could ever imagine.
And my friend said his one bagpipe lesson was a waste of money ;-)
Guess it's time to make complaints to the DNC org.
Thanks to you folks for your gripes, they are inspiring!
If you are the Target person they are asking for then it is very easy. Just take the 2 mins (really not that hard since they have all your information already) to upate some things and MAYBE answer a few quick questions and you are DONE...for a year...and you get a FREE publication for being a professional. CONGRATS!!!
Again, if you are the Target person and you DO NOT want the free publication just say no thank you. They WILL rebuttal because if they dont they can be written up and possibly lose their job. Again just be persistant and say no thank you and just hang up. If doing their job correctly they have to mark you in the computer system as "Rejection" and as far as I know that removes you from the calling list.
You can also ask
"Please put me on your in house DO NOT CALL list" they will have to fill out a form that will take a few days to update in the system but will remove you for 10 years.
NOTE: THEY CANNOT LEAVE ANY MESSAGES ON ANSWERING MACHINES!
Seriously, either way you go about it, (whether taking the free stuff or not) just be polite even if you have been annoyed with it. Just follow the guide I gave you and it will work. Odds are that the person you speak with isnt the person that called you before. If you told someone NO!!! they may have put you back through the system as a "Call Back" whether intentionally or accidentally. (I've seen co-workers put someone back in the system when they shouldnt have just to get back at the person for being rude!) So the next persons computer that calls you, they have NO CLUE that you have been called before and they are just trying to do their job. Again, follow my guide and they should take care of it appropriately.
If you ARE NOT the lead/target person they ask for and you say NO then it doesnt matter. They are instructed to put it as a call back unless they speak with the person directly or a spouse.
So either let them speak to the lead and get it over with or expect the calls to continue.
Oh, and if you are a higher up and they ask for someone below you in the company you CANNOT update for that person...sorry..its just the policy. Alot of their policy can be found as stupid and annoying but it is what it is. A lower employee can update for a higher up though. This goes for family in the business as well unless it is a spouse which then acts as the lead.
Hope this helps you all understand how it works and how not to hate the person on the other end. Just normal people trying to buy groceries. :-/
You could always ask for a supervisor and give them a piece of your mind though ;) lol
**In all Seriousness, It can be hard at times to be nice when you are frustrated but make the extra effort to be a better person. It helps out not only in this job but in LIFE when people will just be nice. Go out of your way to make someone's day just a little easier.**
God Bless,
-Former Lester Inc. Employee
PS. Stop calling us jerks and lowlifes...just doing our job!
(Actually had one guy that said "Stop F***ing Calling ME!" I said, "Ok sir no problem, you have a great day and God Bless." He replies, "F*** YOU" and hangs up) ahh i miss those days :)
Paid very little by the hour.
Nice try though.
I'm on do not call list and will report it next time they call. Fortunately, I have caller ID and never pick it up.
[***] idiots.
Their number given was: 203-481-8212 on my caller ID.
My mom work there Help people good. Help with god and peace be with you
This is the website you need to visit to learn more about this company:
http://www.lesterusa.com/
If you want to mail or call them, their U.S. headquarters are located here:
Headquarters:
19 Business Park Drive
Branford, Connecticut
CT 06405
USA
Tel: 1-203-488-5265
If you are willing to invest the time, you can always write a complaint, then fax it to this telephone # - (I'd bet you they'll take you off their call lists if you convey that requirement in a letter):
Fax: 1-203-483-0408