Stephen Withers
Monday, 08 December 2008 10:17
IT Policy -
Government Tech Policy
Page 1 of 2
Telemarketing might be big business, but Australians hate it - not least because it's costing $A1.58 billion a year in wasted time.
Everyone seems to moan about telemarketing calls, especially as so many of them occur while they're cooking or eating dinner, putting the kids to bed, or at some other equally inconvenient time.
Rest assured that you're not alone - a survey conducted by The Australia Institute found that two-thirds of Australians want to see telemarketing banned completely.
Only one-quarter said it should be permitted; the rest were undecided.
It's not just the annoyance factor - and some people are
really annoyed, with respondents to an Australian Psychological Society survey ranking telemarketing as the 'most irritating event or situation' out of a list of 32! - it's also the waste of time involved, calculated to come at a cost of $A1.58 billion.
That $A1.58 billion was calculated from survey figures showing that an average of 8.5 unsolicited telemarketing calls per month, lasting an average of 1.45 minutes per call, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics figure of $A30.19 per hour for average adult ordinary time earnings.
To put it in perspective, $A3.2 billion was spent on telemarketing in 2005 (presumably the most recent data available). That hardly seems a good balance, does it?
So what might be done about it? Please
read on.
