

Ask HN: Dealing with nuisance phone calls - pwim

We are a small business that has a number so we can receive calls from clients.  Unfortunately, recently we've getting about one call a day from people who either seem to be phishing (by asking us for personal details) or are trying to sell us investment plans.<p>Each of these calls only takes a couple minutes to deal with.  However, it is rather distracting.  Furthermore, because we now assume whenever we get a call it will be one of these, we are worried we'll get a false positive and miss and potential clients.<p>Has anyone else had this problem?  Any suggestions about dealing with it?
======
JacobAldridge
Perhaps not a sexy solution, but asking to be removed from their database can
help with legitimate (though annoying) businesses.

Another thing to ask is how do they get your phone number, and is that the
same way potential customers would? For example, customers may be
overwhelmingly getting your number from your website and business cards, while
telemarketers may be pulling it from open online directories. Removing
yourself from the directories, where possible, may reduce spam calls without
reducing customer enquiry.

Alternatively, route every call through an answering service. Make a public
note on your website / cards / marketing and/or the message bank that you will
return all calls within 30 mins (or whatever) during business hours. Link the
message service to voice-to-text so you get missed calls as emails/sms -
respond to customers immediately, ignore the others.

Lastly, a sexier solution that may or may not work (and only if you have more
than one phone line). Tell the caller you're transferring them through to the
owner who handles the accounts (or whatever) and then just leave them on hold.
Eventually they'll hang up, and due to the unprofitable time it takes them to
call you they may not call back.

