Phone Calls from Outside Salespeople

Reception or anyone who takes a call from an outside salesperson is to route it to the appropriate department. The person in that department is to take the call and tell the outside salesperson firmly and politely that we do not want to do business.

It doesn’t work to ask Reception to take a message for you and then not call the salesperson back. The persistent outside salesperson will just call back again. A bunch of these guys calling back every week creates a lot of dev-t for Reception and everyone else who is answering the phones.

Don’t even ask Reception whether it’s a sales call, just take the call and handle it. That is the only way to stop the calls. (Exception – if you are at lunch, then you can ask to have a message taken.)

Outside salespeople can be very sneaky and try to get information from us so that they can create an order for supplies that we don’t want. Do not try to handle their request; just forward the call to the appropriate department. Do not give them your name; do not give them other employees’ names. Do not verify for them the type of office machines we are using or our shipping address.

One person said they needed to verify our address to send some supplies. Someone verified it and a few days later we got a box of supplies; they said our employee had ordered it and didn’t want to take it back.

It is also very common for a company that has a small business listing or phone book to tell you that your listing is up and ask if you want to renew. That call should go to Marketing because they know if we have listings or not.

Summary: Let the appropriate department handle the call. If you are the appropriate department, take the call, do not ask Reception to take a message.