He saved me the trouble
Wednesday night a door-to-door salesman for Verizon stopped by. I know, crazy, right?
But it worked! It was freezing outside and when we offered to let him in out of the cold he said company policy dictated that he couldn't. So we stood outside and listened to his pitch. If he had been a telemarketer, I'd have hung up on him.
The thing is, we were probably going to switch to Verizon FiOS internet service anyway. I knew it was available in our area and looking into it was on my do-sometime-this-month list. So I stood out in the freezing cold, in my pajamas and socks, hat-hair aflail, with snot flavored stalactites forming from my nose, and pruned dish-pan-hands, listened to all of the details, and signed us up. They're installing it on the 1st.
They're giving us a $100 American Express gift card, and a free linksys wireless router (hello eBay!), which recoups the $20 installation fee and then some. I can't wait. :)
Part of me is wondering if switching back to the door-to-door format would help all of these companies throwing money at telemarketing advertising companies. It's certainly a lot harder to slam the door in someones face than it is to hang up on them. I suppose telemarketing is working to some degree though, or it wouldn't still be going on. But I have to believe that if "Mary Smith" (insert your own Indian accent) called me to try to convince me that I should switch to FiOS I would have given her an earful about how the call was illegal because it was unsolicited and to a cell phone (we don't have a land line – who does any more?), not to mention my being on the do-not-call list; and then I would either have tried to sell her something back, cracked lewd jokes until she hung up on me, or just hung up on her.
There's value in a face.
But it worked! It was freezing outside and when we offered to let him in out of the cold he said company policy dictated that he couldn't. So we stood outside and listened to his pitch. If he had been a telemarketer, I'd have hung up on him.
The thing is, we were probably going to switch to Verizon FiOS internet service anyway. I knew it was available in our area and looking into it was on my do-sometime-this-month list. So I stood out in the freezing cold, in my pajamas and socks, hat-hair aflail, with snot flavored stalactites forming from my nose, and pruned dish-pan-hands, listened to all of the details, and signed us up. They're installing it on the 1st.
They're giving us a $100 American Express gift card, and a free linksys wireless router (hello eBay!), which recoups the $20 installation fee and then some. I can't wait. :)
Part of me is wondering if switching back to the door-to-door format would help all of these companies throwing money at telemarketing advertising companies. It's certainly a lot harder to slam the door in someones face than it is to hang up on them. I suppose telemarketing is working to some degree though, or it wouldn't still be going on. But I have to believe that if "Mary Smith" (insert your own Indian accent) called me to try to convince me that I should switch to FiOS I would have given her an earful about how the call was illegal because it was unsolicited and to a cell phone (we don't have a land line – who does any more?), not to mention my being on the do-not-call list; and then I would either have tried to sell her something back, cracked lewd jokes until she hung up on me, or just hung up on her.
There's value in a face.
Adam ~ Aug 4, 2008 at 9:56 PM