Cold Calling

Cold Calling

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I have a partnership client of which one of the partners has been aggresively cold called on 3 occasions by one of the franchise branches of Certax Accountants.

The gist of the call is to say that they can do a much better job than my firm.

Both partners do not know how this firm obtained his number and certainly no accounts have been made available by either partner to them so it is difficult to see how they can make any such claim. My client is very loyal and knows my firm have been very proactive in sorting out potential problems and planning so they have no intention of moving.  

The website blog for this Certax branch shows the principal is a CIMA.

I would certainly never dream of cold calling in this way and I believe that this may be frowned upon in some bodies.

Does anybody know what the CIMA stance on this is as I think this type of cold calling is little short of obnoxious?  

Replies (9)

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By carnmores
10th Oct 2012 12:19

i hate people like this

ask them how they got the number - unfortunately the world has changed and this sort of practice is ever more prevalent - suggest to your clients they put their number on the no cold call list

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By ShirleyM
10th Oct 2012 12:27

TPS is a waste of time

We have registered for the telephone preference system but we still get cold calls. Too many cold callers totally ignore the TPS system. We get several cold callers every week, mostly from telephone service providers who claim outright (some just imply) they are representing BT, but they aren't!!!!

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By carnmores
10th Oct 2012 12:35

sad isnt it - another toothless body

:-)

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By john woolmore
10th Oct 2012 12:56

Re TPS violations

The firms who are cold calling may be using yellow pages as a call list which is a no no because Yellow Pages charge for this - the listings often contain names of bogus businesses to alert Yellow Pages to this.  If they are buying cleaned lists then they may be out of date.

Generally TPS works for consumers but commercial organizations are seen as fair game.  If you have registered then you can advise the perpetrator that you are TPS and that you will refer the incident to the regulator.

If you do contact the regulator they will ask the firm for an explanation and a guarantee that it will not happen again.  It does not always work!

You could always ask them to hold on and leave the phone off the hook, or if it is an auto caller then once you have ascertained this punch lots of random keys - this confuses the database apparently.  I prefer the former as it incurs costs for the caller.

Hope that helps

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By Bob Harper
10th Oct 2012 13:37

Suggestion

@Codling - this is a total waste of time, energy and money which is no good for Certax or your clients so here's how to stop it. 

Get permission from all your clients and send their details to Certax. so they can remove them from their telemarketing list. Explain that any further calls will result in the client making the appointment and you attending the meeting on the client's behalf.

This will allow Certax to target clients of firms not as good as you and stop your clients getting unwanted calls.

Are you confident enough to do that?

If you are it would show your clients that you are confident and there is not any extra risk because it sounds like they are going to get a call anyway.

Bob

Crunchers Accountants

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By Sheepy306
10th Oct 2012 14:27

Getting on with my life....

Unusual approaches and strategies are always intriguing but the downside to your suggestion Bob is that:

a) How long would it take to contact all the clients, get them to sign the document, and then send it all to Certax. What happens when 47% of clients don't return it and you have to chase them, re-send it etc etc

b) How annoyed would the clients be when asked to do this, as majority of them are not currently being inconvenienced by Certax

c) I would NEVER provide my client list to anyone

d) I certainly don't have time to go to such a meeting, and it's unlikely that my clients would either, particularly as they are scattered nationwide rather than just being local

I think the impracticalities of hitting a walnut with a sledgehammer outweigh everything else, I would prefer simply to let my clients handle the caller themselves, tell Certax how happy they are with me and then perhaps I might spend 5 minutes of my time giving CIMA a call to check the position with regards to their members.

i'm a bit mystified as to how Codling's suggestion is a ' total waste of time, energy and money' in comparison to yours ???? Perhaps I'm missing something.

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By Ding Dong
10th Oct 2012 14:39

@Codling

Why not ask your client to call this certax branch and ask them what it is they can do better then you and to provide a full written explanation of what they know about your ability and why theirs is superior to yours

Then you can take said written example to the certax chap and cima and threaten them with defamation of character and talking codswallop.

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By codling
12th Oct 2012 08:26

Cold Calling

I like Bob's idea but time constraints mean it will be impractical. I am certainly not afraid of confronting these people.

Ding dong's reply also has a lot of merit and is probably the way I will go but thanks everyone for their helpful replies.

 

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Stewie
By Stewie Griffin
12th Oct 2012 09:25

It's happening all the time!!

I love Bob's suggestion, but yes it could prove impractical!!

Codling's client told him of the Certax approach.  However, these types of calls are happening all the time and the incumbent accountant knows nothing about them, unless a client decides to leave.

We've lost 3 clients this way this year, all to the same firm.  When I look back, all were "D" category anyway, so good luck to them ;)  All actually went for a cheaper price - that's life!

Its a feature of doing business in 2012, I'm afraid!  Best thing is doing a great job for the clients you want to keep and leave the rest to the cold callers.  Usually they compete on price so will end up being really busy for little reward I guess

 

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