The title of the post might have startled you, but the fact of the matter is that there are many B2B telemarketing companies that use all kinds of inappropriate means to get contact information. Now there are certainly many options like Do Not Disturb, but the fact is that there are so many ways around these rules that consumers and clients are baffled by how their number got out. Here’s a glimpse of some ways in which companies get a hold of contact information that is useless since the recipient has no idea that they will receive a call promoting a particular product or service. Essentially, if it’s not opt-in, it’s of no use whatsoever.
The most frequent manner of capturing contact details is through forms. Retailers might do this by luring consumers with a discount, while a financial services company may do the same under the pretext of giving valuable insights into the stock market. Other means include contest entries, free sampling, and so on. The simple fact is, anywhere a consumer is entering their number, that channel is the portal to receiving endless calls and texts.
The ‘I accept the terms and conditions’ clause is actually a license to do a lot of things to the customer, and one of them is a boon for B2B telemarketing companies, since it allows them to utilize the legal loophole, so to speak, to share their information with partner agencies. This basically means that if a central firm owns 5 businesses, the moment a customer signs up for anyone, the rest of the 4 can also latch on. Essentially, it’s like a scraping device, whether its contact details or any other details that are mentioned at the time of signing up. Obviously not a very smart idea as far as building credibility is concerned.
Another important aspect in this contact is big data. Computers today are very advanced and have the capability to crawl the web and look at millions of data points at the same time. They can instantly recognize the number of likes, pins, and tweets a person has done, all of which is valuable information for telemarketing companies. However, it’s not in the knowledge of the person whose information is being shared, and hence, there’s no telling how they would react to the communication.
