Why so many Robo calls with no one on the other end when you answer?

Question

I am a bit confused, why we constantly get phone calls on our business line and when we answer nobody’s there. What purpose does it serve a company to call people and not have some sort of system in place once they answer? I don’t claim to be the most technical savvy, so I’m sure someone knows the reason behind this method.

Randall Alan · Answer

@Joe S.

Three answers for you:

1) You are being dialed by an auto-dialer that will dial multiple numbers at once and connect your call as soon as someone on THEIR end is available... but if no one is available, there is no one to talk to you... so it will hold you in silence until someone is available.

2) Many newer systems are actually listening for you to say "Hello"... and they won't start their pre-recorded greeting until they hear it.  So on a business line, if you answer your phone pseudo  "Thank you for calling 7-11, this is Brittany" - the system didn't hear "Hello"... so it doesn't start it's greeting... you hear silence.

3) A variation of #1 - the auto-dialer once it detects you picking up the line has to then work to connect your call to a person... this takes about 2-3 seconds... This is my opportunity to hang up before they reach me!

I intentionally answer my phone, "This is Randy"...and not with "Hello"...  that way the "Hello" never comes and I just hear silence.  If no one says anything within 1 second of me answering the phone I just hang up.  But I get 10+ calls a day like this... mainly people trying to call me about wanting to buy our rental properties.  Gotta love wholesalers who are paying outside companies to call every non-owner occupied home on the list!!!  What really sucks is when you have 25 properties on the list!... so if there are 50 companies doing this, that is 1250 calls I'm going to get... and the truth of the matter is there are likely hundreds of wholesalers who think they've got the magic idea to farm that out!  Everyone gets some version of the same list... so I get call after call after call after call!

I was reading a wholesaler posting on these boards that their response rate was like 1-2 leads per thousand calls!  Ugh!... kills me to think that is worth it!

It's all very annoying!

All the best!

Randy