I don't think I'm alone in this, people ringing you from companies that you've never heard of to sell you something that 9 times out of 10 you either don't need or is over priced.

Over the years I've adopted some various strategies to handle cold callers, but when I think of it they are people just like you or me. They are trying to do a job that helps pay for the roof over their heads or the jam on their bread.

I knew a person I used to work with who would allow the cold caller to go through the entire sales pitch, he'd even take notes and then right when the cold caller had finished, he'd put the phone down.

A tactic I often considered to be brutal and a little harsh.

Today I've received 2 cold calls this morning, one from a broadband provider and another from a card company.

The broadband provider was looking to reduce my bills by a whopping 50p. Although I attempted to negotiate her down even further on her pricing, she unfortunately had a script to keep to. I politely declined as it would mean I'd have to switch broadband provider, to save myself 50p.

A card provider, isn't something we need as a web agency, and when he asked to speak to Robert, that's me, my first question was how are you?

Not because I'm trying to get friendly, but because at the end of the day we're human, and you never know what kind of day a person is having.

So should we be more friendly to cold callers? I think we can all change our tact slightly, obviously if the calls kept coming after I've said I'm not interested then that friendly response would get less.

What do you think? Should we be more friendly to cold callers?