Gary Varga (4/15/2014)
Craig A. Silvis (4/15/2014)
imho it is a service, not rudeness, to the caller to say no thanks and hang up. they are looking for sales and if you know you are not buying then it wastes both their time and yours to stay on the line in an attempt at being polite.Surely when the have been told in no uncertain terms that you are not interested then they should accept that and close the call (note that I did not say hang up).
It depends on what they are selling and how much discretion they have.
Telephone sales people often are not ALLOWED to hang up until after X attempts. The natural inclination of people would be to say "sorry for bothering you" and get the heck off the phone at the first resistance, so call centres force their agents to keep trying. They know that the inclination of people is also not to hang up on someone, and they try to take advantage. In this case, rules of politeness simply don't apply. They are actively trying to abuse your manners to close you on something you do not want. With the exception of verbal abuse or threatening behaviour, just about anything goes here. If you can't afford to have your time wasted at that moment, just hang up (I save off the numbers with alternate ring tones and just don't answer when I don't have time). No goodbye or explanation is needed, they've heard it all. If you have time to kill, kill some of theirs. 10 minutes on a no sale call costs them money. Immediate hangups are cheap. So keep them talking. See how many times you can make them repeat the same spiel. Or put down the phone and see how long it takes them to realize no one is responding. Or play a prank on them. Or try to escalate to their supervisor. Whatever floats your boat ... they called you.
With sales/marketing people on the business side, I'd imagine its different, but they will also have fewer leads and a lot more pressure to sell.