letters to the editor

JUST LEAVE ‘EM ALONE I must be wacky. I honor the do-not-call lists even without the enforcement of the government’s penalties. Why? Because those signing up on the lists don’t want calls. In business, that’s really a good enough reason to honor prospects’ wishes.

When our staff does outbound calling, I try to emphasize to my co-workers that a script may give them comfort, but our real goal is to uncover and fulfill needs, and that seldom comes from reading a script like a monotone tape. I’d probably mind the calls less if I thought there was a chance that the callers could actually answer my questions about a product and knew what they were selling.

Like I said, call me wacky.

Gary Zenker
Vice President, Marketing
First Financial Bank
Downingtown, PA

THE CUSTOMER COMES FIRST I don’t know what circles Terry Nugent runs in (Letters to the Editor, Oct. 1). He obviously deals with different people than I do. I have heard about the annoyance of telemarketing for many years, long before terrorism became a factor. In fact, to many people it is terrorism, especially the old and enfeebled.

I’m not sure we marketers didn’t want to listen to our customers on the subject because it would have forced us to be more innovative.

I for one still think my job is to serve the consumer/customer, not the whims of my own imagination. If in doing so I find I’ve been doing something wrong, I attempt to correct it. Maybe a few others need to look inward and see if they are doing likewise.

Robert B. Fisher
Metra
Chicago