There's an article in Salon today arguing that the new "do not call" list is going to kill telemarketers, and further argues that this will hurt the overall economy.
I say baloney.
The article claims that due to the number of lost customers, telemarketing firms won't be able to make as much money. This is crap. Telemarketers don't make money based on the number of calls they make, they make money based on the number of sales. Rather than hurting telemarketers, I would argue that the do-not-call list is increasing the chances that any given call will result in a sale, thus actually improving telemarketer's profitability.
The article also claims that shifting to other forms of mass-marketing (such as regular mail) will be an increase in expense that will also hurt firms' profitability. First, I can't imagine that phone costs are really cheaper than mass e-mailings, that other bane of our collective existence. Second, the number one source of telemarketing calls in our household is credit card companies. These same companies are also the number one source of junk mail to the house. Obviously, it can't be hurting MBNA too badly to be so desperately trying to get our business.
So...sorry Mr. (or Ms.) telemarketing exec. No sympathy for you here.
Posted by Jason at July 15, 2003 08:45 AM