Friday’s Rants from the Soap Box in My Living Room!

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Welcome to my Friday’s Rants from the Soap Box in my Living Room. A small space in the week where I can have a chunter about things that have made me twitch with annoyance or made me question if the world has gone mad or not….
I also  linked up with MummyBarrow for her Ranty Friday. You can find her blog and link up here if you’d like to join in. A good rant can be therapeutic. Click on the link at the end to join in!

My ranty Friday post this week, is about a company called TNS or Taylor Nelson Sofres a very large marketing research group.

We have had over 30 calls from this compnay, (yes, I have counted) in the past 4 weeks. They originally called, asked to speak to me, then asked who else lived in the property, and said that their computer system had selected that person, ie LSH. He was, of course, at work, because they rang during the children’s supper time, and because they have a normal 0208 telephone number, I answered it, thinking it was a local call, maybe a friend or work related. I told them he wasnt home, and they hung up.

Since then, 4 weeks ago, they call at random times of the day, asking to speak to me, then him. When I tell them he is not available, they either hang up, or ask when is a suitbale time to call. I have asked them several times not to keep calling, and on several occasions, they have called in the early evening, and he has answered and told them he doesn;t want to speak to them, and yet they persist. They are claiming to want to hear his opinion on local services to that “htey can be improved”. They want our e-mail address “for reasearch purposes”.

I have asked them, why they keep calling us, and that we are signed on with the Telephone Preference Service, and that we should not be getting these calls. I was informed that because they aren’t “selling” anything, they don’t come under the TPS and so they are allowed to call us. Their computer picks random telephone numbers, but it seems to keep picking ours out.

We are getting fed up of these calls. It may well be that they are looking to get research to “improve facilities” in our area, or are they going to sell our details on to other companies, who will then call or mail us? I don’t actually know, and I don’t actually care. I keep asking them to stop calling, they say “of course” and yet they call again. If I want to take part in market research, or LSH wants to,  we certainly don’t want to be called at 5pm at night, or 7pm at night, when we are trying to feed and put our children to bed. LSH is at work in the daytime, and has neither the time or desire to answer survey questions in his busy working day, and I have told them several times that he isn’t around in the daytime, yet they persist in calling and asking for him.

I am HACKED off, LSH, normally the more patient and tolerant of the two of us, is getting a little fed up. We want these calls to stop. They are annoying, persistent, and we don’t want to be called and we don’t want to speak to a market research company, that we don’t trust to not pass our details onto other companies.

I have sent a very stroppy e-mail to the contact I have found on the TNS website. I am hoping they will get back to me, and let me know why they keep calling us, and why we aren’t being taken off their call list.

I feel much better now, I have that off my chest! Feel free to click on the linky below, to read the other rants and join in….
MummyBarrow
Have a good weekend!

Posted in Friday's Rants from The Soap Box and tagged cold calling, marketing calls, sales calls, surveys, Telephone Preference Service, TNS.

One Comment

  1. That would piss me right off, how rude to be so persistent when asked to back off!
    Maybe they should be looking “in house” to see what improvements can be made before trying to fix anything else!
    Hope they listen and stop the phone calls

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