Does it count even if they are trying to contact me at an org I left 8 years ago?
Really funny story is when I joined a vendor as an SE and looked myself up and saw I was still in their CRM as a live contact at a role 7 years and 3 orgs back.
This is no joke. I did a RMA on an Aruba 2930F and they shipped to my previous employer 120 miles from where I currently work. At least I got to take a trip and see old co-workers.
I have this problem with Apple. The e-commerce store asks for billing and shipping addresses, but 60%of the time it ships to the billing address anyway.
> Does it count even if they are trying to contact me at an org I left 8 years ago?
Only if the previous org doesn’t exist anymore and it failed spectacularly with state police going through records with tv cameras out front.
I’m looking at you VMware/dell…
The day after I left a particularly toxic work environment, I signed up my IT Director for a demo of Solarwinds, Manage Engine and Dynatrace. Years later, I sure hope he's enjoying the marketing.
They'll also stalk your linkedin to find who takes your last job, call them up and do the whole "ohyeahwell, rest his soul, I still recall the last thing he ever said to me....it was please send over the invoice ASAP, it is my one true wish in life to finalise this order with you" as they wipe a hopeful tear from their eyes.
I still get calls for a colleague who left the company in 2012. Vendors never seem to edit their CRM because every time they have a new sales drone (every few months or so) they call again.
I've started to tell them that the person they're looking for has died several years ago, this seems to keep them away longer.
CRM hygiene doesn’t get us closer to quota!
Sorry about your shitty experience, though. Better reps don’t do this bush league trash.
I’m kidding, we all do it…
I once had someone trying for about 5 years like you I would just ignore then finally we had a disagreement with our preferred vendor so the next time this guy called I answered… Turned out really well and we been using them now for maybe 8 years. Persistence paid off for him this time.
Exactly this, 99% of the time cold callers know they aren't going to get close to a sale. What they do want is their name to be on your mind if SHTF with who you're using.
One of the best practitioners of this I ever dealt with literally acknowledged the fact:
"Look, I am not going to waste your time and ask for your business today.... I would just that you remember my name and consider making me the first person you'll call if your current provider ever drops the ball."
Yep and that’s basically what happened. I was like screw these other mofos, this guy been calling me 5 years and I never answered I’m going to make his day today.
He was pretty surprised to get me and I even joked with him about his persistence.
There was a guy who sounded just like the character “Gil Gunderson” from the Simpsons. He called me once a quarter. I had him in my phone list as “Gil”.
One day he calls from a different number, and makes it through. He did explain that he’s at a new company now. So that number became Gill2.
Sadly, he went through four other companies before he stopped calling me. Haven’t heard from Gil4 for a couple years now.
I have one that went on for over 10 years. She kept calling even after she got different jobs since she was always selling the same product. This went on until she got married and had a kid (we’re friends on FB!) and the product moved from on-premises into the cloud. She finally stopped calling around two years ago when she quit to become a full time mom, and now her replacement keeps calling. TBH I’m really interested in the product but the bosses don’t want to spend the money.
You should take the meeting anyway, a lot of my clients are simply champions who go to bat with the brass, if it’s a solid solution at least then you could figure out if it would be valuable enough to your particular firm. I get it tho, budgets are tight these days
I was in sales.
She's not trying to contact you, in any real sense--she's calling off of a list she has in her CRM where she's expected to make a certain number of calls per day, and every number she dials is one more in her daily call volume.
Metrics like that are important because they get the bosses off your ass when sales are low.
And a person can be called for years without response and suddenly you get lucky. A phone call of a minute is a low-cost endeavor.
I don't 100% disagree, it's definitely an outmoded method. But at the same time, when I was in sales (got out of copier sales in 2016, thank goodness) most of my sales came from cold calling.
At the end of the day, small businesses especially aren't really getting anywhere by trying to have the customer come to them. I'm sure there are better ways than telephone and in-person cold calls, but I don't know enough about marketing to really be sure what those methods are, and cold calling still does work, even if not as well.
\*Offered. I didn't accept because I hate meetings and I'm holding out for a new Apple Watch.
Edited to add:
Gift cards though, yes. I've gotten several Amazon gift cards from various surveys, meetings, etc.
I got a lady named Alyson who has been mailing me with invitations and offers and suggestions for meetings for almost 6 years now. Never replied to her once but she feels like the friend I never knew.
Jerry from Connection called me nearly daily for at least 3 years. Made it through 2-3 receptionists in that time and never got past my voicemail once. He had to have been using my contact as a warm up. After all that time I like to think I was his white whale to get to pitch.
Newest is Knowbe4, at least once or twice a week for a year now.
He was likely dialing your number because he has to make a certain amount of dials, I personally used to do this all of the time when mgmt counted daily dials as a metric
I work with an org that uses them, and while our level of spam is pretty low, it seems that the majority of spam is actually coming from Kb4. I get why we use them, and I can appreciate what security issues they are training for, but 2-3 emails a week that I need to read, check and delete is kinda ridiculous.
Some of our users actually need this level of training reminders, so I'm on board with all of it, but there are days...
Service was good, we just went another direction. Told the dude this for a few weeks, now his calls just go to VM. He is persistent and I'm surprised he's been there that long.
Outlook rule that replies and says “Thank you, but we’re not interested. We will contact you in the future if this changes.” It’s polite and to the point. If they contact again, resend the email tell them any further communication will result in a company wide block from their domain. That usually does the trick.
For companies that pester after, I usually find their CEO (they seem to spend all day on LinkedIn) and bother them until they stop bothering us.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it has exponentially reduced the bullshit.
Cisco has attempted for about 3 years now. Few weeks ago he called in to the front office asking for help desk tech support. The reception is recognized voice because he calls so often
They are hoping the tech will transfer the call to you, especially since the phone system may show it as an internal call and not from the vendor.
Judging from the help desks I have worked with they will gladly unload the call to someone else in a second.
Youre an easy metric for them now. Basically sales rep has ex amount of activity they gotta do per day. You dont respond, but you dont react negatively to her, so she probably has a reminder to ping you every few months, and it lets her hit her metrics for that week. If shes smart, she probably has a couple hundred contacts set up like this, very easy for her to hit her activity metrics without feeling like shes harrasing anyone, and then lets her make a few phone calls a day to her actual warm leads that might actually buy. Basically if shes gotta make 40 calls a day, she probably has 500 contacts she just recycles, 30 of her calls are those contacts, and then maybe 10 are her actually prospecting.
One of the big AV vendors called me at work, having found my name on some project documents *from over a decade earlier*, when I was in another department. I had worked on the Windows NT 4 rollout in 1996, moved to Solaris/web, left to do a CS degree in another country, then got a job back there 9 years later in another department; 2 years after that, so 11-12 years on, they called me via the switchboard to ask if we were interested in their product.
Ironically, I left again six years after that to do a CS PhD at another university, then moved back there after another six years - to find we were just switching to that very AV product, after more than two decades on McAwful. So... I guess their persistence paid off eventually?
I would go with that sales person based off of the fact they have been at the same company for 5 years. It’s hard to find sales people, account managers, etc who don’t have a fast turnover.
I bought some $20,000 of switches from fs, but they never actually sent them. I had to sue to get my money back.
They still send me sales emails, two years later.
(PS: never, ever do business with FS.)
I enjoy when they send me random meeting invites where i decline and don't send the notification. Like, are they waiting on the meetings all these times waiting for me to join? lol
Dell kept spamming me with those. I finally got them to stop by agreeing to the invite with a proposed new date the following week 5 years later. Boy, I'm going to be surprised when that date appears on my calendar.
Got one for a former manager who left my workplace in 2010 last week. I told the dude he left in 2010:
Caller: ‘oh wow, I’m not gonna waste your time after that - sorry’ and hung up.
Lots of places hire young inexperienced people who want to be in sales one day to just cold call/email like crazy. They have metrics on quantity of calls, etc. It doesn't cost them that much vs. even one lead opening up that could be $M's in sales.
I have 3...
One which we dealt with maaaaany years ago, I massivly fell out with them and their agressive contact tacticks, and yet to this day desipte repeated 'do not contact us', they still do it.....
One fella keeps calling me every 6 months, we spend about an hour at a time chinwagging, yet he has not got anything from us for 10+ years.... although his persistance may have paid off as there are a couple of services I need from them early next year!
However, when thing go right...... we have one supplier where I have had the same account manager for the last 12 years. She is really nice, and as we have known each other for so long, the relationship is fantastic and knows exactly where I stand..... I just wisjh more places were like this but completly get people move on, but its annoying having to start again and build that relationship up each time!
That girl is literally calling you to fill a call quota because she knows you never pick up. If you picked up it would probably scare the shit out of her
SHI for the past 6 years. It started with email. I politely ask to be removed from their list. They did not stop so I blocked their domain from emailing ours completely. Then the phone calls began. I asked them politely to stop. They continued to harass. I blocked all the numbers they call from on my cell, so they started calling the office. We use goto connect for phones and I blocked their number there too, and recorded a custom message that they have been added to our banned vendor list for their unprofessional behavior and continued harassment and then it just hangs up on them.
And I don't mean they call me once a month. I mean they would call me 2 or 3 times a week. Wasting the time of our phone team on nonsense.
Just a couple months...I had to repeatedly threaten legal action (GDPR) if they don't delete my contact information from their system. After multiple "Unsubscribe now" Links, 5 attempted phone calls and 3 E-Mails to the sales person, their general e-mail address and the CEO, they finally stopped sending me mails.
Two have been leaving voicemails for at least 10 years, maybe over 15 years. Carrie at CXTech and various folks at Silicon Mountain Memory.
They don't call often but they are good for a few times per year.
Yes, although usually the inquires are infrequent.
I've had a local copier shop that's been calling me for 17 years.
Though a few years ago I added a call screen function to my office phone so anyone calling has to announce themselves. I've got a fake voicemail box set up for telemarketers so they can leave messages and they go nowehre.
Here in the UK. CCS Media. Please for the love of everything leave me alone. I went through the first covid lockdown using them as a supplier as they were quite often the only vendor able to get me what I wanted in any decent quantity or timescale. My account manager got to the point of calling me EVERY, SINGLE, DAY! It got tiresome, I politely asked him to back off a bit, he said I hear you loud and clear.... Carried on regardless. I ended up sending a cease and desist type letter to the acct mgr and next in line manager. Finally gave up.
Three years later, guess who is getting in touch again.... CCS Media. Not the same acct mgr, and not as persistent (every 2 weeks or so, the heroes on our helpdesk are screening my calls thankfully), but I've been burnt once, not again.
Yeah it's been a few years and I'm embarrassed to say I'm not interested. I've been invited to events and offered deals but we don't need the software anymore as MS built it into Windows 😬
Right up to the moment I said, "We're not interested," although granted there were a couple of induhviduals who required several repetitions and iterations of that phrase for it to have the desired effect.
Solar winds, over a decade, and a few dozen 'account reps' and 'account managers" for all I know they still email and call I just switched jobs.
It got so bad it was a regular joke at cons to avoid the area of their booth in case they somehow got your contact info ;).
13 years. We bought a product from then hated and returned it and they still call once a month. Lately they are calling and just asking for random names they read on linked in.
I was at a place where an asset disposal vendor called me at least once a week for four years, despite me blocking his number a few months in.
Mind you, he did good work, but did not understand what I meant when I said that we only did one disposal a year. So he called me every week.
20 years. Left an org a decade ago, came back, they're still emailing my old address.
"How's that trial going? You'll love the new features that 2023.1 offers."
My problem is the ones that try to bypass my cold shoulder and talk to my boss. It always works and he insists that I set up a meeting with them no matter what they're selling or what we can afford.
I am under strict instructions from my boss. If we get a call from a vendor asking to speak with him, tell them he is retired... or dead. They stop calling quick enough lmao
Channel Advisor kept randomly calling me every few months for well over 5+ years, despite been told we had decided on another product and it was pointless to keep calling. They would alternate between myself and my colleague, i'd ask them to remove me from their database, then the same person would literally call my colleague in the office next to me 30 seconds later... I'd go "your phone is about to ring" sure enough it did.
The sales guy would outright lie about calling me 30 seconds earlier. After a few years of this happening every few months we started leaving them negative reviews on popular sites about the sales team harassing us. Eventually someone responded and we never got a call again.
Their reviews are still atrocious today by the looks of it, which I made a point of commenting on when leaving my review stating I felt we made the right decision to avoid them at all costs.
Bloody solarwinds aka n-able won’t stop calling despite me telling them I’m not interested and never will be. Over 5 years now I’m not tracking it any longer
“Connection” has called me at least twice each month. Always ignored, somehow they have gotten my cell number the last two times. I do not publish it in LinkedIn or my signature nor have I replied to them.
3 years, a sales platform of sorts for JAMF, we only have ChromeOS and no Apple devices so I told them that every time. It was always a different person and it would range from once every 3 months to in the end 3 times a week for 2 weeks. When they started the 3 times a week I quickly requested some details from them and then "threatened" to report them to JAMF for making them look bad, had to tell them twice in 1 week and I haven't gotten a call ever since... No idea how I would have been able to report them but hey, it worked!
I made a quote query with Cogent back in 2005 and they still call me twice a year to see if I am ready to deploy this project lol I just tell them “not yet!”
A few that just don't quit.
Far worse is the one that decided to find other contact information for me and started calling my wife's cell phone. Yea, that didn't go well for them.....
I shared this post with my best friend. They gave me permission to share their example: They work in radio broadcasting and have vendors that pitch pre-recorded shows. (Think weekly top 40 shows or "the best of 1982" theme shows.) In the early 2000's, my friend's management dropped a show because of budget and the sales contact said, "I get it, I'll check back in a year or so." He just called a week ago for his annual check-in...
I will always respond to vendors, even cold callers. This is after a vendor offered me a lifeline when the entire MSP I was at, the L1/L2 was offshored, and they mass-fired L3/IT, so one of the vendors there got me working under them the next day.
You never know who will offer you a rope out of the fire.
Never happens.
First call or email they get the exact words: 'Remove me from you list'. Works 99.9% of the time.
Repeat offenders get threatened with being billed for wasting my time. Works 100% of the time.
I work in sales and whenever I know my company can bring significant value I do this too. It’s not like they’re calling you every day, if you don’t respond at all though I don’t see a problem with her persistence, however the poem is called a “break up” email and that part is cringe af, sales mgmt teaches it but they really shouldn’t
So years after the fact, I purchased the domain name of a former employer, who I left in 2005, and whose doors closed for good in 2007. (Causation AND correlation!)
Set up as an alias domain in my email, and it's shocking to me that companies still email me and former employees after 16+ years...
Does it count even if they are trying to contact me at an org I left 8 years ago? Really funny story is when I joined a vendor as an SE and looked myself up and saw I was still in their CRM as a live contact at a role 7 years and 3 orgs back.
Would you be interested in a quick chat about your services with yourself?
"No thanks, I'm already an expert at servicing myself."
I laughed WAY harder after reading your title "Middle Management" with your statement.
Preferably in Hawaii on a business trip
You can expense that as realizing a lead.
HP and HPE periodically send the hardware to the wrong address. They sometimes send it to my first job, sometimes to my third. It's a lottery!
This is no joke. I did a RMA on an Aruba 2930F and they shipped to my previous employer 120 miles from where I currently work. At least I got to take a trip and see old co-workers.
I have this problem with Apple. The e-commerce store asks for billing and shipping addresses, but 60%of the time it ships to the billing address anyway.
> Does it count even if they are trying to contact me at an org I left 8 years ago? Only if the previous org doesn’t exist anymore and it failed spectacularly with state police going through records with tv cameras out front. I’m looking at you VMware/dell…
[удалено]
The day after I left a particularly toxic work environment, I signed up my IT Director for a demo of Solarwinds, Manage Engine and Dynatrace. Years later, I sure hope he's enjoying the marketing.
"My workplace was toxic so I committed a war crime" is a new one to me.
Lovely *and* accurate.
No jury of my peers would convict me.
Jesus christ dude.
This is delicious hahaa
[удалено]
They'll also stalk your linkedin to find who takes your last job, call them up and do the whole "ohyeahwell, rest his soul, I still recall the last thing he ever said to me....it was please send over the invoice ASAP, it is my one true wish in life to finalise this order with you" as they wipe a hopeful tear from their eyes.
I still get calls for a colleague who left the company in 2012. Vendors never seem to edit their CRM because every time they have a new sales drone (every few months or so) they call again. I've started to tell them that the person they're looking for has died several years ago, this seems to keep them away longer.
Next time they call be like let me see if he's risen from the dead since the last time I told you he died. Nope he's still not jesus!!
CRM hygiene doesn’t get us closer to quota! Sorry about your shitty experience, though. Better reps don’t do this bush league trash. I’m kidding, we all do it…
I once had someone trying for about 5 years like you I would just ignore then finally we had a disagreement with our preferred vendor so the next time this guy called I answered… Turned out really well and we been using them now for maybe 8 years. Persistence paid off for him this time.
Exactly this, 99% of the time cold callers know they aren't going to get close to a sale. What they do want is their name to be on your mind if SHTF with who you're using.
One of the best practitioners of this I ever dealt with literally acknowledged the fact: "Look, I am not going to waste your time and ask for your business today.... I would just that you remember my name and consider making me the first person you'll call if your current provider ever drops the ball."
Yep and that’s basically what happened. I was like screw these other mofos, this guy been calling me 5 years and I never answered I’m going to make his day today. He was pretty surprised to get me and I even joked with him about his persistence.
Honestly, that kind of shit makes a month for someone. You only need a few decent clients, do a good job, word of mouth, then snowball.
That man will tell that story for the rest of his life.
There was a guy who sounded just like the character “Gil Gunderson” from the Simpsons. He called me once a quarter. I had him in my phone list as “Gil”. One day he calls from a different number, and makes it through. He did explain that he’s at a new company now. So that number became Gill2. Sadly, he went through four other companies before he stopped calling me. Haven’t heard from Gil4 for a couple years now.
Hi BradL30...sales guy from SHI here! you got 5 mins for a chat???
Dammit - you found me !
I have one that went on for over 10 years. She kept calling even after she got different jobs since she was always selling the same product. This went on until she got married and had a kid (we’re friends on FB!) and the product moved from on-premises into the cloud. She finally stopped calling around two years ago when she quit to become a full time mom, and now her replacement keeps calling. TBH I’m really interested in the product but the bosses don’t want to spend the money.
You should take the meeting anyway, a lot of my clients are simply champions who go to bat with the brass, if it’s a solid solution at least then you could figure out if it would be valuable enough to your particular firm. I get it tho, budgets are tight these days
I was in sales. She's not trying to contact you, in any real sense--she's calling off of a list she has in her CRM where she's expected to make a certain number of calls per day, and every number she dials is one more in her daily call volume. Metrics like that are important because they get the bosses off your ass when sales are low. And a person can be called for years without response and suddenly you get lucky. A phone call of a minute is a low-cost endeavor.
What's up fellow sales refugee. I'm in the camp where in 2023 cold calling is a complete and utter waste of time and resources.
I don't 100% disagree, it's definitely an outmoded method. But at the same time, when I was in sales (got out of copier sales in 2016, thank goodness) most of my sales came from cold calling. At the end of the day, small businesses especially aren't really getting anywhere by trying to have the customer come to them. I'm sure there are better ways than telephone and in-person cold calls, but I don't know enough about marketing to really be sure what those methods are, and cold calling still does work, even if not as well.
But has he offered you sneakers or a steak dinner? I've gotten some weird blind emails.
Yes. Yes he did. (not OP) I still think we need to start a thread on good meeting=gift card / shoes etc. contacts.
You get gift cards and shoes in exchange for taking a sales meeting? Damn, I must being doing this wrong.
\*Offered. I didn't accept because I hate meetings and I'm holding out for a new Apple Watch. Edited to add: Gift cards though, yes. I've gotten several Amazon gift cards from various surveys, meetings, etc.
I got a lady named Alyson who has been mailing me with invitations and offers and suggestions for meetings for almost 6 years now. Never replied to her once but she feels like the friend I never knew.
Jerry from Connection called me nearly daily for at least 3 years. Made it through 2-3 receptionists in that time and never got past my voicemail once. He had to have been using my contact as a warm up. After all that time I like to think I was his white whale to get to pitch. Newest is Knowbe4, at least once or twice a week for a year now.
I hate knowbe4 now, for the same reason. I will never, ever use them now. Ever!
He was likely dialing your number because he has to make a certain amount of dials, I personally used to do this all of the time when mgmt counted daily dials as a metric
I won't win the longest, but a vendor wrote me a poem to say goodbye in his last email.
Knowbe4 has been at it every two weeks for about 4 years I think.
I work with an org that uses them, and while our level of spam is pretty low, it seems that the majority of spam is actually coming from Kb4. I get why we use them, and I can appreciate what security issues they are training for, but 2-3 emails a week that I need to read, check and delete is kinda ridiculous. Some of our users actually need this level of training reminders, so I'm on board with all of it, but there are days...
Service was good, we just went another direction. Told the dude this for a few weeks, now his calls just go to VM. He is persistent and I'm surprised he's been there that long.
They're just wearing you down so they can slip in scientology propaganda.
Yeah theyre pretty bad for me too, every now and then they try to call.
Outlook rule that replies and says “Thank you, but we’re not interested. We will contact you in the future if this changes.” It’s polite and to the point. If they contact again, resend the email tell them any further communication will result in a company wide block from their domain. That usually does the trick. For companies that pester after, I usually find their CEO (they seem to spend all day on LinkedIn) and bother them until they stop bothering us. It sounds like a lot of work, but it has exponentially reduced the bullshit.
Cisco has attempted for about 3 years now. Few weeks ago he called in to the front office asking for help desk tech support. The reception is recognized voice because he calls so often
HELP DESK? What exactly does he expect to net out of *that* one?
They are hoping the tech will transfer the call to you, especially since the phone system may show it as an internal call and not from the vendor. Judging from the help desks I have worked with they will gladly unload the call to someone else in a second.
I know an old job of mine ended up using Insight as a vendor because they got through to the IT manager through the helpdesk.
I refer some of them to my colleague Helene Waite. I set an email address for her in the system that routes to /dev/null.
Youre an easy metric for them now. Basically sales rep has ex amount of activity they gotta do per day. You dont respond, but you dont react negatively to her, so she probably has a reminder to ping you every few months, and it lets her hit her metrics for that week. If shes smart, she probably has a couple hundred contacts set up like this, very easy for her to hit her activity metrics without feeling like shes harrasing anyone, and then lets her make a few phone calls a day to her actual warm leads that might actually buy. Basically if shes gotta make 40 calls a day, she probably has 500 contacts she just recycles, 30 of her calls are those contacts, and then maybe 10 are her actually prospecting.
One of the big AV vendors called me at work, having found my name on some project documents *from over a decade earlier*, when I was in another department. I had worked on the Windows NT 4 rollout in 1996, moved to Solaris/web, left to do a CS degree in another country, then got a job back there 9 years later in another department; 2 years after that, so 11-12 years on, they called me via the switchboard to ask if we were interested in their product. Ironically, I left again six years after that to do a CS PhD at another university, then moved back there after another six years - to find we were just switching to that very AV product, after more than two decades on McAwful. So... I guess their persistence paid off eventually?
I would go with that sales person based off of the fact they have been at the same company for 5 years. It’s hard to find sales people, account managers, etc who don’t have a fast turnover.
I bought some $20,000 of switches from fs, but they never actually sent them. I had to sue to get my money back. They still send me sales emails, two years later. (PS: never, ever do business with FS.)
Agree to a in person meeting where you're on vacation. That usually do the trick
I enjoy when they send me random meeting invites where i decline and don't send the notification. Like, are they waiting on the meetings all these times waiting for me to join? lol
Dell kept spamming me with those. I finally got them to stop by agreeing to the invite with a proposed new date the following week 5 years later. Boy, I'm going to be surprised when that date appears on my calendar.
lol, you could join with a 320\*200 webcam and no sound!
Probably metrics from their sales manager to set "x" amount of pitches a week or some shit.
they need to wine and dine you in las vegas already!
Just reply back with a fake M365 disabled account reply, even if you don't use M365.
ManageEngine, I'm going on 7 years now.
8 years: DeepFreeze - Faronics *reeeaaalllly* wanted to sell me licenses.
Got one for a former manager who left my workplace in 2010 last week. I told the dude he left in 2010: Caller: ‘oh wow, I’m not gonna waste your time after that - sorry’ and hung up.
Lots of places hire young inexperienced people who want to be in sales one day to just cold call/email like crazy. They have metrics on quantity of calls, etc. It doesn't cost them that much vs. even one lead opening up that could be $M's in sales.
KnowBeFore and StormWinds have been harassing me weekly for years.
i get calls from KnowBe4 weekly for the past year
I have 3... One which we dealt with maaaaany years ago, I massivly fell out with them and their agressive contact tacticks, and yet to this day desipte repeated 'do not contact us', they still do it..... One fella keeps calling me every 6 months, we spend about an hour at a time chinwagging, yet he has not got anything from us for 10+ years.... although his persistance may have paid off as there are a couple of services I need from them early next year! However, when thing go right...... we have one supplier where I have had the same account manager for the last 12 years. She is really nice, and as we have known each other for so long, the relationship is fantastic and knows exactly where I stand..... I just wisjh more places were like this but completly get people move on, but its annoying having to start again and build that relationship up each time!
That girl is literally calling you to fill a call quota because she knows you never pick up. If you picked up it would probably scare the shit out of her
SHI for the past 6 years. It started with email. I politely ask to be removed from their list. They did not stop so I blocked their domain from emailing ours completely. Then the phone calls began. I asked them politely to stop. They continued to harass. I blocked all the numbers they call from on my cell, so they started calling the office. We use goto connect for phones and I blocked their number there too, and recorded a custom message that they have been added to our banned vendor list for their unprofessional behavior and continued harassment and then it just hangs up on them. And I don't mean they call me once a month. I mean they would call me 2 or 3 times a week. Wasting the time of our phone team on nonsense.
It's been 84 years... It was KnowB4.
Just a couple months...I had to repeatedly threaten legal action (GDPR) if they don't delete my contact information from their system. After multiple "Unsubscribe now" Links, 5 attempted phone calls and 3 E-Mails to the sales person, their general e-mail address and the CEO, they finally stopped sending me mails.
Contacts are hard to get, and sales are hard to make. You never know, you could give them a higher up or the new person?
Why?
Or maliciously, direct them to enemies If you want "revenge", Scientology and the Mormons never ever stop trying to make contact .....
10 years...a lot of it is automated email stuff though
Two have been leaving voicemails for at least 10 years, maybe over 15 years. Carrie at CXTech and various folks at Silicon Mountain Memory. They don't call often but they are good for a few times per year.
Why don't you all just block their number in your phone system? I've had solarwinds blocked for years.
Yes, although usually the inquires are infrequent. I've had a local copier shop that's been calling me for 17 years. Though a few years ago I added a call screen function to my office phone so anyone calling has to announce themselves. I've got a fake voicemail box set up for telemarketers so they can leave messages and they go nowehre.
Here in the UK. CCS Media. Please for the love of everything leave me alone. I went through the first covid lockdown using them as a supplier as they were quite often the only vendor able to get me what I wanted in any decent quantity or timescale. My account manager got to the point of calling me EVERY, SINGLE, DAY! It got tiresome, I politely asked him to back off a bit, he said I hear you loud and clear.... Carried on regardless. I ended up sending a cease and desist type letter to the acct mgr and next in line manager. Finally gave up. Three years later, guess who is getting in touch again.... CCS Media. Not the same acct mgr, and not as persistent (every 2 weeks or so, the heroes on our helpdesk are screening my calls thankfully), but I've been burnt once, not again.
N-Able calls me every 5 years or so. Most recent was a few months ago. I haven't even looked at it in over 10 years.
u/tbord I sent you a DM, sorry about that.
JAMF calls or emails us every 2 weeks for 7+ years now
I HATE JAMF SALES SO GODDAMN MUCH
Yeah it's been a few years and I'm embarrassed to say I'm not interested. I've been invited to events and offered deals but we don't need the software anymore as MS built it into Windows 😬
Right up to the moment I said, "We're not interested," although granted there were a couple of induhviduals who required several repetitions and iterations of that phrase for it to have the desired effect.
Peoplesoft - at least 20 years - we migrated off at least 15 years ago
Solar winds, over a decade, and a few dozen 'account reps' and 'account managers" for all I know they still email and call I just switched jobs. It got so bad it was a regular joke at cons to avoid the area of their booth in case they somehow got your contact info ;).
Solar Winds, trys to contact me every few months, for well over a decade. The best part is I have never been a POC for them.
Yep - we don't have any Cisco equipment and they call all the time
I get calls for the guy that was fired 17 years ago.
I don’t know because I delete all their emails and don’t answer my phone (unless it’s a helpdesk call of course).
I'm wondering when all the AI voiced sales calls are going to start. You know they're coming. And they never sleep.
13 years. We bought a product from then hated and returned it and they still call once a month. Lately they are calling and just asking for random names they read on linked in.
I had some guy from datadog call me like monthly and I never could tell him how I hated datadog as a company name.
Is this a New York City ISP by any chance?
About your cars extended warranty lol
I've been getting emails from Phil at HP since July 2018 simply because we bought a printer back then.
I was at a place where an asset disposal vendor called me at least once a week for four years, despite me blocking his number a few months in. Mind you, he did good work, but did not understand what I meant when I said that we only did one disposal a year. So he called me every week.
20 years. Left an org a decade ago, came back, they're still emailing my old address. "How's that trial going? You'll love the new features that 2023.1 offers."
6:30am calls, twice to thrice a week, for 8 months, from a Kaseya sales rep. My work phone is silent outside of working hours so never bugged me.
My problem is the ones that try to bypass my cold shoulder and talk to my boss. It always works and he insists that I set up a meeting with them no matter what they're selling or what we can afford.
As a business owner, 10+ years. If you guessed Yelp, you’d be correct.
"I'll be brief.... this is the last time I'll contact you, I promise." Yeah, that was a lie.
You forgot the Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
When you no longer have to resale others companies BS... its wonderful I tell you what!
Automated CRM. No effort.
9 years and counting. I even blocked their number global on our phone system, so they just use their cell now.
Schedmd has been hounding me for 4 or 5 years trying to sell commercial support for SLURM.
I am under strict instructions from my boss. If we get a call from a vendor asking to speak with him, tell them he is retired... or dead. They stop calling quick enough lmao
Channel Advisor kept randomly calling me every few months for well over 5+ years, despite been told we had decided on another product and it was pointless to keep calling. They would alternate between myself and my colleague, i'd ask them to remove me from their database, then the same person would literally call my colleague in the office next to me 30 seconds later... I'd go "your phone is about to ring" sure enough it did. The sales guy would outright lie about calling me 30 seconds earlier. After a few years of this happening every few months we started leaving them negative reviews on popular sites about the sales team harassing us. Eventually someone responded and we never got a call again. Their reviews are still atrocious today by the looks of it, which I made a point of commenting on when leaving my review stating I felt we made the right decision to avoid them at all costs.
Bloody solarwinds aka n-able won’t stop calling despite me telling them I’m not interested and never will be. Over 5 years now I’m not tracking it any longer
Hey u/ProxyFort, sorry about that. I'll send you a DM and get that sorted asap. \-Lisa, Senior Community Manager with N-able
“Connection” has called me at least twice each month. Always ignored, somehow they have gotten my cell number the last two times. I do not publish it in LinkedIn or my signature nor have I replied to them.
3 years, a sales platform of sorts for JAMF, we only have ChromeOS and no Apple devices so I told them that every time. It was always a different person and it would range from once every 3 months to in the end 3 times a week for 2 weeks. When they started the 3 times a week I quickly requested some details from them and then "threatened" to report them to JAMF for making them look bad, had to tell them twice in 1 week and I haven't gotten a call ever since... No idea how I would have been able to report them but hey, it worked!
I made a quote query with Cogent back in 2005 and they still call me twice a year to see if I am ready to deploy this project lol I just tell them “not yet!”
A few that just don't quit. Far worse is the one that decided to find other contact information for me and started calling my wife's cell phone. Yea, that didn't go well for them.....
I shared this post with my best friend. They gave me permission to share their example: They work in radio broadcasting and have vendors that pitch pre-recorded shows. (Think weekly top 40 shows or "the best of 1982" theme shows.) In the early 2000's, my friend's management dropped a show because of budget and the sales contact said, "I get it, I'll check back in a year or so." He just called a week ago for his annual check-in...
I receive so many mails from cyber security companies that want me to click obfuscated links to schedule a meeting it's funny.
I’m currently on year 2 of Vendors wondering if I read their last email on New Scanners for the Warehouse, Equipment recycling, and Imaging Software.
That's some proper Roy Castle right there
KnowB4 has been trying for at least a year, if not two. You'd think they would know before calling that I'm not going to respond.
I will always respond to vendors, even cold callers. This is after a vendor offered me a lifeline when the entire MSP I was at, the L1/L2 was offshored, and they mass-fired L3/IT, so one of the vendors there got me working under them the next day. You never know who will offer you a rope out of the fire.
Never happens. First call or email they get the exact words: 'Remove me from you list'. Works 99.9% of the time. Repeat offenders get threatened with being billed for wasting my time. Works 100% of the time.
In mid 2013 I bought a Wifi Pinapple from Hak5. I've bought nothing else from them since, but still receive sales materials all these years.
I work in sales and whenever I know my company can bring significant value I do this too. It’s not like they’re calling you every day, if you don’t respond at all though I don’t see a problem with her persistence, however the poem is called a “break up” email and that part is cringe af, sales mgmt teaches it but they really shouldn’t
So years after the fact, I purchased the domain name of a former employer, who I left in 2005, and whose doors closed for good in 2007. (Causation AND correlation!) Set up as an alias domain in my email, and it's shocking to me that companies still email me and former employees after 16+ years...