We have known the annoyance of irrelevant sales calls for companies. For any company no matter what the size or industry category, sales calls can be an unwanted interruption to a business day.

We have always politely advised unwanted sales calls to send enquiries in writing or within an email so that their enquiries can be filtered and in persistent cases we take their details and politely let them know not to contact unless they are invited to do so in the future.

Lately we have had a rise in data companies calling to ‘substantiate’ company details such as names, phone numbers etc. We are always aware that giving details can open a flood gate of sales so please be careful what information you decide to make public.

The best ways to deal with sales calls (apart from signing up to us!!) is to make sure you are aware what information is listed in business directories both in paper form and on the web that people can readily access.

Always have a strategy for sales calls. For example if it’s a new enquiry let the salesperson know of an acceptable way to contact the company, such as email or in letter form but without giving extra data like contact names and positions away. We often give out an info@ or enquiries@ email if companies are happy for us to do so, but we wont give out a personal email address such as Nicola.Kent@.

When it gets to the stage that you remember or recognise a salesperson when they call, then they are probably bordering on nuisance. In these cases we tend to remind firmly but politely that if the company was interested they would have contacted them by now. We have only in very rare circumstances ‘bad listed’ a salesperson, but if it gets to that point we advise no contact at all.

Please do remember that sales people can be genuine and not all annoying! But be firm if what they are offering would have no benefit to the company at all so that they don’t waste their time calling you back.

Please let us know of any stories you have regarding bizarre sales calls and if you need our assistance please yell!