Advice for Phone Bankers

A friend of mine complained to me over the weekend that she was getting an inordinate amount of phone calls with blocked caller IDs asking her about the 2013 campaign. She said the callers never clearly identified themselves or the organization they are calling on behalf of.

I have had the same problem myself. I received close to ten phone calls from a blocked caller ID within a span of four days. I decided to answer a blocked call just now. The person nervously identified himself as a caller from the “Republican Convention” who wanted to ask me a “one question survey”. First, the “Republican Convention” is not a legal name for any major political committee in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The RPV, Opportunity Virginia, the Senate Caucus, the House Caucus, and the individual candidates are all good answers, but the “Republican Convention” is purposefully vague.

Second, I assume this one question is about whether people prefer primaries or conventions? I certainly have an opinion, but I didn’t share it over the phone. After asking twice who the caller was calling for and not getting a good answer, I concluded by saying, “I don’t take calls with blocked caller IDs”. He hung up.

In summation, I don’t know who is funding these calls. I may support the cause. I might not. I don’t know because I don’t know who it is for sure. However, if phone bankers are not willing to be transparent about themselves and want to hide behind a blocked caller ID, they are hurting their own data sample as many people will ignore these calls. People naturally assume blocked IDs are crank calls or telemarketers and ignore the calls. This is just a thought for consideration.