[Asterisk-Users] Results of 13 month study on reducing telemarketing calls

[Steve Murphy]

Hello--

I've been playing with the privacy options on my home/home-office system
since August last year, and have some results, gleaned from my CDR
records, which over the last 13 months, number a total of 8672, which
includes incoming, as well as outgoing calls.


Before I start spitting out numbers, let me note that with the current
setup, I haven't had to tell a single telemarketer anything in the last,
well, I don't know. I don't think I've had to talk with one all this
year.

So, something I'm doing is working. Let's see if we can figure out what
it is.

My line characteristics:

I have two phone lines in rural Wyoming. One for business, one for home.
Both are listed in phone book. I tried to unlist the business number.
Because I live in the country, the phone numbers are listed in the wrong
town. Boundaries of prefix areas sometimes defy logic. I's a long
distance call to the nearest town.

As far as areas go, I am a in farily backwater, remote location. I'd
expect my call volume to be fairly low.

Home line: I usually have 4 kids in the age range to get calls. My wife
gets the gross majority of the calls.

1. NATIONAL "DO NOT CALL" LIST
Before I go any further, let me state I signed up all my numbers as soon
as the list opened. This has had a definite impact in reducing unwanted
calls. I did not remove my name from the list as a control measure. I'll
let someone else do that dirty work. The NO-CALL list, tho, is not
completely affective, though. Charities, political parties, government
recruiters, those with remote "pre-existing business relationships" are
still clear to call.

2. ZAPATELLER.
The Asterisk Zapateller application, which plays the SIT (Special
Information Tones) (the dah-dee-die tone, usually followed with the
female voice, "The number you have dialed...") to those with no caller
id, is the first app run on incoming calls on both my business and home
lines. Humans usually do not react immediately and slam down the
receiver when they hear these. But autodialers can. And according to my
stats, they do, with reaction times varying from 1 to 3 seconds total
call length.

Total number of calls ending in Zapateller: 40
By Context:
   homeline: 23
   workline: 17

In the above, over the last 13 months, 40 calls ended in the Zapateller
application. It takes pretty quick reflexes for this to happen. Reflexes
that only a telemarketer or his machines can develop.

3. PrivacyManager

The PrivacyManager application gets run after the Zapateller on just my
home line. Its function is to require that an anonymous caller enter
some sort of callerid. My system will accept just about anything, but it
does react strongly if the caller enters my own phone number. If a call
ends in this application, it is either because they hang up at this
time, or have severe physical impediments that render them unable to
dial a ten-digit number. While it is impossible to tell whether people
we know just can't handle this hurdle, and hang up, or a telemarketer
can see the writing on the wall, and does the same, here are the
numbers:

Total number of calls ending in PrivacyManager: 38
By Context:
   homeline: 38

3. MENUS

When I started, I didn't really consider that presenting the calling
party with a set of choices (as to whom to talk to) as a possible
telemarketing deterrent. But, months of watching the system in action
has led me to he conclusion that is exactly that. Not all telemarketers
call from unlisted numbers. If I'm not getting their call, and neither
Zapateller nor PrivacyManager affects them, then I'm doing something
right in my menus. They are hanging up during the introductions (the s
priority) in my menus. Who? How many?

There are many reasons why legitimate as well as telemarketers will hang
up after they dial you. Wrong number, confusion, wrong selections, mind
change, etc. all serve as possible reasons.

Total number of incoming calls that hung up in the start menus: 837,
which is about 10% of the total CDR's in my database, a rather high
number, one would think.

Of the 837, I found these to be interesting:

   homeline (""zzzzzzz college""): 13
   homeline (""CAPITOL US     ""): 1
   homeline (""CPI            ""): 1
   homeline (""CREDIT FOUNDATI""): 1
   homeline (""EI             ""): 23
   homeline (""MICROSTAR SOFTW""): 9
   homeline (""MILLER PLANTE I""): 4
   homeline (""NATL PRO LIFE  ""): 13
   homeline (""PAI INC""): 15
   homeline (""Privacy Manager""): 1
   homeline (""STRATEGIC TELEC""): 1
   homeline (""UNITED STATES G""): 1
   homeline (""): 16
   workline (""): 3
   workline (""CA MKTNG       ""): 16
   workline (""INTEGRATED SALE""): 1
   workline (""LESTER INC""): 1
   workline (): 29

That's 150 calls from anonymous or questionable sources,
that have hung up over the last 13 months!

I have come to the conclusion that my simple menu of choices may form
the most formidable barrier to telemarketers. I'm thinking that most
telemarketers must have instructions not to traverse menus to make a
call. All these folks had to do was dial "1", "2", "3", or "6", and
EVERY SINGLE ONE (except the few who chose the torture menus) decided to
hang up instead.

NOTE: I don't know if this a factor or not, but the "Dial 6 if you are
calling me, because I am on a list of any kind", is the FIRST option on
the menus.


4. Telemarketer Torture Scripts

When I wrote them, I seriously doubted that any telemarketer would ever
fall for something like this, but I was wrong-- a few did spend some
time. Here is a list of all calls ending in the scripts.

   telemark-mag-new (""""): 1
   telemark-mag-new (216377zzzz): 1
   telemarket (""LIR            ""): 2
   telemarket (""Privacy Manager""): 2
   telemarket (""UNITED STATES G""): 1
   telemarket-charity (""INTEGRATED SALE""): 1
   telemarket-charity (800349zzzz): 1
   telemarket-political5 (""UNITED STATES G""): 1
   telemarket-sorry (800349zzzz): 1

There were, of course, a lot more calls that ended in the scripts, but I
know that they were friends looking for a laugh. I think that the
government caller may have been a local military recruiter, curious
about the menus. I did once end up with a customer on the workline,
making a wrong choice and ending up in them. Ugh.

Well, that's it.

murf


-- 
Steve Murphy <murf at e-tools.com>
Electronic Tools Company