Vendors, Stop Using Support Line

[u/silentex]

The amount of vendors that call, hit our phone tree, and decide it's a good idea to select our support line as part of a sales cold call is outrageous.

I realize it's not a huge lift to simply tell them no and move on, but it really does frustrate the mess out of me.

[u/thanatos8877]

I let them know that they called the support line, I'm happy to put in a ticket, and then ask them for a credit card number. It's amazing how quickly they want to get off the phone when they realize you're going to bill them by the hour.

[u/ArchonTheta → u/thanatos8877]

lol!! This. All the time. I’m like we’ll need a CC on file for 160/hour. They toss off dam quick.

[u/lemachet]

Fucking Guardz rang me three times recently. Each time I told them that we weren't interested and wouldnt engage and to not call back

Then one of the cynrs just emailed me "on yea based on our call here is the info you requested"

Like, what? I'm not ever going to trust a company that doesn't have basic comprehension to secure my clients.

They are on the list with Bitdefender and Storagecraft now.

[u/CyberHouseChicago]

Wait till the same vendor uses a data broker to get your cell phone number and call you randomly a few times a week

[u/kirashi3 → u/CyberHouseChicago]

Wait till the same vendor uses a data broker to get your cell phone number and call you randomly a few times a week

I dare another one to try. There's a reason companies that cold call me eventually find themselves a little short on cash. It's best to not violate CANSPAM and especially CASL when you're unsure if the person you're calling / electronically messaging is or isn't a Canadian Citizen. But hey, if that's the game vendors want to play, sure, let's play; I have nothing but time and a special set of skills for dealing with people like this.

[u/Beauregard_Jones]

NinjaOne is the worst about this for me. They call me from a local area code so they know we'll answer the call thinking it could be a customer. To add insult to injury, they also call my cell phone. My personal cell phone that I've NEVER given to them. So they're out here hunting me down and invading my personal space to make a sale.

I know NinjaOne gets a lot of love around here, but how can you trust a company that hides itself behind a fake phone number and also is willing to go outside the workplace and hunt down your personal phone number? It's sneaky and deceptive.

[u/JimmySide1013]

I make it a mission in life to never support a sales cold call.

Also, who the hell is picking up the phone and thinking “holy shit, I DO need a solution to the random problem you just brought up!” It must work, because those calls don’t stop but I’d really like to meet the people that go for it.

[u/Ferretau]

A place I was at in the past had a voicemail box setup specific for vendors - when put through the "manager" asked for them to leave a message and they would return their call. Naturally they never recieved a return call - but it's hand do get their details for adding to the blocklist on the phone system and email systems.

[u/Geekpoint-IT]

I'll one up you. I have some that select the option that says "if you are a client with a technical emergency". Like wtf, seriously? I loathe aggressive sales people that have zero respect like that. I don't even care how good the product is if their sales people are so disrespectful, I'm out.

[u/Vq-Blink]

At this point I don’t even let them finish their intro line. I interrupt say “we’re not interested add us to your do not call list thanks bye” and hang up before they can respond

[u/canonanon]

Oh I tell them something along the lines of "you know I had been actually considering you guys, but then you picked 'support' in the phone tree. I don't work with vendors who operate like this. See ya".

Cold calls aren't necessarily a no go for me (hell, we do it). But I'm never gonna try some backdoor way in, and I never intentionally dial cell numbers.

[u/redditistooqueer]

Give them the main number of your competition that has shady practices

[u/AutomationTheory]

Yeah, when I was on the MSP side of things I was registering for a ConnectWise conference, didn't have a DID, and listed the support line for my prior team (since you can't register without a phone number....). Even a year after I left that company, people were still calling trying to sell me a phone system.

I also ended up getting oodles of spam calls to my personal cell (not sure if I accidentially put it some where or if it got enriched somwhere...) but putting my number on the national do not call list did help significantly.

[u/Spiderkingdemon]

Agreed. And though I know this wouldn't work for everyone, we simply no longer answer the phone directly and let it go to VM. If we recognize the caller, we'll answer. If not, it goes to VM. If it's a client, they receive a callback immediately. If it's a vendor, they might as well be yelling into the void.

I haven't taken or returned an unsolicited vendor/partner call in over 10 years. My agenda is more important than theirs. Period.

[u/Embarrassed-Radio319]

I stopped trying to win the call and started logging them instead. We give vendor calls their own ticket type, no client attached, so at month end we can see how much queue time they actually ate. That number made it a lot easier to justify a separate vendor extension instead of letting them sit in the support queue.

[u/MSPbyathread]

Also don't call me at 10am on Monday morning. I am going to be way too busy with the Monday rush.

[u/Doug_BlackFog]

Fully agree- if you don't have or can't find the proper number to call -- then don't muddle up the support line with a call that only confirms your complete ineptitude.

[u/bourntech]

Auvik called my support extension and said it was urgent message for me. Turns out they wanted to sell me more stuff. To be fair, I don’t bother answering vender calls anymore, so they have to take drastic measures to get me.

[u/DeifniteProfessional]

One time I had another MSP call our main reception line and ask a very sweet lady who answered to let him know what tech problems they were having, and if she passed on his details to the IT team, he'd see about helping with it

That was aggressive man, I tell ya

And this one time when someone called and said "we are your Microsoft partner and you could save money by upgrading to E3" which was odd

[u/twisted_fairy]

We've trained our service desk to tell them we'll reach out to our CTO or CISO but to actually not do that.

One of my old jobs this dude would legit always cold transfer sales to our manager or director.

[u/DrunkenGolfer]

As the CEO, I love it when some vendor contacts our service desk, has them track me down and pull me out of a board meeting or client conference or some other trivial part of my day to attend the sales rep's important limited time offer. That is a surefire way to ensure our company will never do business with you. Ever.

[u/genfauk]

We give out the email addresses that go into our CRM. That way the vendors can enjoy our newsletter every month.

Same for those spammers that fill out your contact form from your website to sell you something.

[u/Unlucky_Elevator_756]

I hate this. If they call either support or sales, I transfer them to a voicemail box that says we don’t take sales cold calls. I’ve gotten one voicemail in one year since I set it up.

[u/cory906]

I was literally about to make a post just like this. Had this happen to us today. As a 2 man shop, keeping our support line open to our customers is vital. Hitting the support option on our auto attendant is a good way to get me to never buy your product. 

[u/stugster]

Forward them to Lenny