Phonathon, Week 2

So I’ve been working for the Clemson Fund Phonathon for the past 2 weeks now, and I must say, it’s been quite an interesting experience.

I work 6pm-9pm on Tuesday and Thursday nights calling Clemson alumni and asking them to pledge money to the 2010 Clemson Fund to go towards academics, facilities, and any other cause that needs money thrown at it. Needless to say, when I call for money, people respond in very different ways.

Method 1: Call Screening
I’ve hit a lot of answering machines and I’ve noticed that there are really on 3 pre-programmed outgoing voicemails on home machines. I’m not sure if this is a coincidence, but when people don’t record their own, I’m stuck listening (and mouthing along) with the same cheesy messages and then going into my spiel for calls left on the machine:

Hi! My name is Paul Hargrave and I’m a student at Clemson calling tonight on behalf of the University. I was trying to get in touch with , but I’m sorry that I missed you this evening. I’m going to drop some information in the mail so that, if you’re interested, you will be able to make a donation to the Clemson Fund for the 2010 fiscal year. If you would like to contact us directly, you may call (864) 656-5896 or look us up on the web at clemson[dot]edu[slash]isupportcu.

Thanks, have a great evening, and go tigers!

Last night I got plenty of voicemails and got pretty darn good at leaving this method.

Method 2: The Hangup
There are two types of hangups in this category.

The first is the rude hangup. This branch of people, upon picking up and hearing my introduction:

Hi! My name is Paul Hargrave and I’m a freshman at Clemson calling tonight on behalf of the university. May I please speak with ?

the line goes dead and I’m stuck listening to dead air until I realize what happens. In this case, I punch in the number again, followed by the long-distance code, and and immediately apologize for the line being disconnected. If they hangup this time, well that’s considered refusing Clemson.

The second is the tactful hangup. In this case, the subject can take a variety of different courses.

1) “Let me go get him”. [line dies]
2) After going into the “bonding session”, the pledge interrupts by asking “What’s the bottom line?” or “What do you really want?”. At this point, I can’t lie and say we are just getting in touch with all our alumni to see how they are doing, but I have to lay it on the line and basically beg for money. The response to this is usually a no.
3) After the introduction, bonding, and making the case, when it comes to the ask, the pledge insults Clemson and quickly gets off the phone. One of my favorite insults was:

“Clemson is an evil empire run by bigots and assholes and I’m not giving another nickel to support such a corrupt system”

Obviously someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Method 3: The Refusal
You all knew that the refusal was coming. The refusal is not quite as bad as the hangup, but after you’ve given the caller everything, they give some excuse as to why they can’t give. We’re supposed to fish for the reason that they are unable to give, and then cite our understanding for the reason, then lumping the alumnus into a group of others and perform the second ask.

I understand why [ladder ask] won’t work for you since [reason], but what a lot of alumni like to do in your situation is give a more comfortable $10 donation to keep them on the active alumni list. This still gives you the 4 editions of the Clemson World magazine and guarantees that we won’t call you again for the remainder of the year.

When you can’t give $10, you’re usually just cheap (or broke). The hardest part then is staying on the line to verify their mailing address and email so they can “keep in touch with Clemson”.

Method 4: The Pledge
The final method, and by far my most favorite, is the actual pledge. In this method, I successfully execute the introduction, bonding, case, and when it comes to the ask, one of the following two things happen:

1) They pledge! Hooray! A successful call!

2) The pledge isn’t comfortable with the amount of the ladder ask (usually $25, $35, or $45 given right after the other so they think that $25 is too little and $45 is too much leading to them pledging $35), so you have to go into the second ask of $10. Upon hearing this option, they gladly agree and you’ve got yourself a pledge. Remember, every little bit helps.

After any pledge, you have to be sure to generously thank them, verify their address and email, then complete the call with the normal BS.

For each pledge that we get, we get to play a game with the supervisor for points. Last week’s game was blackjack and this week’s was Clemson Trivia. The person with the most points at the end of the night gets $15 Tiger Bucks, the second $10, and the third $5. Tiger Bucks are slips of paper which we collect to earn prizes once we accumulate enough.

Last Tuesday, I collected over $3750 (including 2 $1000 pledges) for the Clemson Fund, but only won $5 Tiger Bucks because others had gotten a larger number of smaller pledges. That sucks, but that’s life.

I’m not going to say that I haven’t made any mistakes while on the job, but most have been comical. I once referred to President Barker in my case:

I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but Clemson has recently been ranked the 22nd best school in the nation. Unfortunately that’s not good enough for President Barker, who wants to rocket us into the Top 20. The only way that alumni can help us achieve our dream is to contribute to the annual fund…

as Bob Barker, the previous host of the gameshow The Price is Right. That was embarrassing, but it got a laugh out of the pledge, and he actually ended up pledging more.

Usually the addresses given are home addresses, and so when verifying the address, I’m used to saying “I’d just like to verify that you live at”, but in one case, while performing this last step, I made the mistake of saying “I’d just like to verify that you live at PO Box …”, and then promptly had to follow it up with “Of course you don’t live in a PO Box, but is that the address at which you receive mail?” It was honestly hard to keep a straight face after that little faux pas, but I managed.

Being a business major, the call center is a great place for me to learn how to interact with people and put my skill of parting people and their money. While it only pays $8/hour, the hours are good and the job easy. I just hope it doesn’t come in the way of classes in future semesters.