Facebook and Twitter feeds are the new ways we judge the intentions of our business partners.

by Douglas Rushkoff | July 08, 2011 | (0)

We’ve all been there: the phone rings, we check the screen, and it’s them. Again. That same telemarketing number, calling yet another time.

When it’s local carpet cleaning, real estate scams or multi-level marketing, we shrug and move on. We expect this sort of telephonic spam. But when it’s a major corporation, we take note.

My wife and I have been on the various do-not-call registries since their inceptions, and while the occasional call still gets through, we’ve never experienced anything like the past month of telephone attack, apparently from a home security company. According to the phone’s caller ID, the company’s number has called my wife two, three, even four times a day for over a month—and they cannot stop.

One of us picks up the phone each time they call. The technology waits for a pickup and then assigns the call to an operator. If the operators are all busy on other calls, the robo-dialer promptly hangs up on us. If there is an operator available, we explain that we are on the do-not-call list and we want to be placed on the company's do-not-call list. And we ask them to please, please leave us alone.

The poor operators open up the computer file on us and gasp when they see the dozens of requests for us not to be called. The nicest ones say they will take care of it right away or call over their supervisors (if it’s still normal working hours and not weekend, evening or holiday) to examine the situation.

And here’s the amazing part: The managers then explains that there’s nothing they can do. They say they are not a hired or third party company—the computer system making the calls is part of the company's corporation, and thus beyond their control. They don’t know how not to call us. To shut down the switchboard might affect the company's security operations.

Huh?

For those of you who aren’t familiar with home security, this business is an alarm company that installs monitoring systems in people’s homes. If an intruder opens a window or trips an alarm, the system calls the the company's switchboard. An operator there is responsible for determining the nature of the emergency and calling police, fire or ambulance.

So, from all appearances anyway, here’s a security company that absolutely depends on computer telephony, demonstrating its utter incompetence with that technology. To make matters worse, the company is a division of the former Tyco Corp., a company that collapsed after an internal corruption scandal during the Enron era. It’s now called TE Connectivity and trying to clean up its image.

This would be a great challenge for any company: Prove to consumers that a corporation brought down by criminals from within is can be entrusted with maintaining the security of our homes and lives. Their choices for how they interact with their prospects must be undertaken carefully. Today, however, a simple Google search of the company reveals hundreds of posts and complaints about the company’s aggressive and unstoppable telemarketing blitz. Consumers on Facebook give each other advice about how to file a police report against them and how to apply for a restraining order.

Missteps such as this are not an option in the days of social media.

After dozens of calls with the company's complaint department, numerous posts on its Facebook page and a few widely distributed Twitter posts, I got an email message from the company's communications people asking me to call them. The woman I spoke with was familiar with telemarketing law (as well as the history of all my phone numbers and addresses, which was a little scary). She was flummoxed, as the switchboard had no record of the calls and utilizes a pretty advanced piece of telemarketing software to prevent these situations from occurring. It is her belief that some unscrupulous reseller of the company's alarm systems is making the calls and illegally “spoofing” its number. Other than attempting an investigation, there is nothing its executives can do—unless of course it’s really their computer dialing by mistake.

What brought a major company into this technological quagmire is understandable: They simply wants to get customers, and the phone is a great communications tool. The problem is that the company has either employed a technology it doesn’t understand, or a commissions system it can’t control. Robo-calling technologies are tricky, particularly if they’re using random number generators to make calls. The do-not-call registries must be programmed into the call lists in advance, and operators must be able to add numbers to the company’s own registry when requested. Anything else is illegal, and punishable by up to US$1,000/call.

A company whose own competency is so closely tied to telephone management must take extra care when employing a consumer-facing telephone strategy. If it is also recovering from the PR nightmare of its criminal corruption, the company should also try not to break laws in any readily visible way—or engage with partners who do.

The lesson for all of us: Our behavior over the network becomes reflective of who and what we are. Our customers’ cell phones, voicemails, inboxes and Facebook accounts are the interfaces through which they not only interact with the world but also judge our caliber and intentions. Exploit them with as much consideration as you bring to your core offering. Ping gently, apologize profusely and keep your eyes on the network effects.

Postscript: Unable to stop the calls, we decided to initiate a block on the incoming number. Turns out AT&T charges to block numbers, and Apple’s iTunes store has banned the iPhone app that allows blacklisting. Rather than jailbreak the phone to install the app, we are paying the fee. For now. One+

Douglas Rushkoff

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF speaks and writes about communication, values, culture and organizations. His latest book is "Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age." He can be contacted via www.rushkoff.com.

TAGS: technology , social media , column , One+ July 2011 , executive leadership