My parents have been plagued by a rising volume of junk telephone calls from telemarketing outfits. Imagine my incredulity when I saw on the BBC this morning that one of the leading firms calls itself The Listening Company. One of the people we have to thank for the plague of telemarketing is Martin Williams who, the firm’s website explains, “helps define the customer Buying Experience, map the Customer Journey, and apply intelligence to the use of data in sales and prospect management”. His colleague, David Murray, has had a “distinguished career… in high volume outbound programmes”. The two of them report to Neville Upton, chief executive of The Listening Company, who is “the inspiration for the business”. In the UK, there are two ways for people to fight back against the harassment and invasion of privacy perpetrated by these kinds of people. One is for sufferers to register with the Telephone Preference Service. The second is for concerned citizens to use the industry’s own telemarketing techniques and engage its practitoners in discussion of the matter. The Listening Company: +44 20 8484 1000 NevilleUpton@listening.co.uk | martinwilliams@listening.co.uk | davemurray@listening.co.uk
