If a salesman contacts a low-level employee directly and asks if they are interested in their products what should said employee do?
Some suggestions:
For an unsolicited sales call?
I am not the appropriate person to address your request, and I am not at liberty to divulge information about other departments/employees. Have a nice day.
Then hang up, and carry on with your workday. Treat it the same as any robocall you get on your personal phone(s). If there's a legitimate reason for them to make contact with your company, they'll do it through the proper channels, not by calling a random "low-level" employee.
This is probably nothing more than a cold call. But there is also a possibility that this is an attempt to get information about your company, information which outside parties shouldn't have. Do not give out any information. If you're feeling generous, offer to take their information and forward it to people above you. Whether you actually do so or not...that's up to you. Maybe ask your manager what the proper thing to do with it is.
Treat it the same as any robocall you get on your personal phone(s) That's not always the best advice. I'm much more courteous to unsolicited callers on my work telephone and basically use a canned line like you've shown. On my personal phone, I'll just hang up without a word and then block the number. When speaking for your company, a degree of professionalism doesn't hurt!
I am going to assume you got this via email. If on the phone, politely hang up by saying that you are not authorized to have those kinds of conversations and need to get back to work.
Ignore it
The salesperson is either lazy/stupid or it could very well be something more sinister. The sinister part is the problem. When I worked at a bank, it was not uncommon for salespeople to contact employees to be obviously phishing for information.
There are so many questions that can be asked on their own and be harmless but when paired with the knowledge from another employee who was asked different questions, can reveal a great deal of corporate information, even if it was just the internal email address of someone senior or what specific technologies we currently used. Even asking about things as innocuous as birthdays and spouses could lead to substantial damage.
As a low-level employee, it is near impossible to gain by engaging with such people. Just don't.
Couple years ago, a salesman cold-called Joe, our naïve Facilities guy. Pried out seemingly innocuous info about our fluorescent lights of all things. Joe didn't see a problem answering, because it's not exactly a trade secret, and Joe wasn't committing to buy anything.
Next thing you know, a shipment of F40T12 fluorescent tubes (our size) shows up, with a nonsense P.O. and Joe's name. The gift shop accepted them, assuming Joe ordered them. And later, a bill. And more lights. And more bills. And finally the accountant realizes we're on the crazytrain here, calls Joe, who denies ordering any of it, and puts the kibosh on this. After $9000 of invoices were paid. That's 1% of our budget.
The scammer looked at public data about companies like us, looking for companies small enough that it is likely we had poor internal controls.
That's what that's all about. They want to glue your name to some bit of info about your company that will let them ship undesired goods or otherwise scam the company. Or work a scam later, like call someone else, drop your name, and then have surprising knowledge about your company to make it all seem legit.
Historically, you'd see this scam with copier toner or thermal fax paper: Someone would cold-call and ask "I'm with your regular office supply, could you remind us, what's the brand of your copier? And your name is?..."
Assuming the contact isn't obvious spam, discuss with your manager.
I'm shocked none of the other answers suggest this. To me, it's the obvious thing to do. It's simply part of the golden rule: whenever you don't know what to do, ask your supervisor. That's what they're there for! This goes double for low-level employees. What might look very reasonable to a low-level employee might also be the incorrect thing to do, because one is presumably not so familiar with industry protocols and/or how the company works.
Instruct them to not give the caller any information and ask to be taken off their call and email list.
The answers that advise you to say nothing/ignore are good. However, if the salespeople who are contacting you are implying some sort of relationship to your company, you should report them to your manager immediately.
I was in a situation once where I was contacted by a salesman working for a contracting firm, who said he was working with my company to find contractors and wanted to meet with me to get a better understanding of what the requirements for the assignment were. I was a senior non-management level and we were in the market for contractors, so at first I assumed that it was legit and set up a time to meet with him. However, I also ran it past my manager, who knew nothing about it and had me run it past our IT procurement people. It turned out that we had worked with this firm in the past but had no current association with them, so the salesman was just fishing for information. I cancelled the meeting with him, and my company's legal department also threatened his firm with legal action for misrepresenting its relationship to us. The procurement people were pretty hot about it too (I was included in the email chain) and there's a good chance that this shady salesman had torpedoed any future business that his firm may have gotten from us.
Some great answers here already.
Basically, the rule is to reveal nothing, particularly no names or contacts within the company. Although most sales calls will be just that, and not a hacker trying to social engineer their way into the company, you just don't know, and sales people get attached like leaches to anyone they think can provide a lead.
I regularly get calls from sales people trying to either sell things to me or trying to get the names and direct contacts for people who do buy stuff. Although I do purchase things for my department or myself, I don't reveal that otherwise the sales person will become a pest.
What I do is to take the details of the sales person, their website and their contact number and say I will pass them on to the relevant people. I do not reveal who those people might be! My colleagues would hate it if I did reveal them to a salesperson!
If the caller is particularly annoying, I will add them to a block list so I don't have to take a call from them again.
Other than all the answers already given, I assume it is someone from the sales department of your company, someone you are familiar with or who could use in-company information to get your phone number.
When testing out new products, development and sales do sometimes need 'new eyes' to look at a product or service.
If you feel it is a situation like this, it depends on the company structure how you handle.
In the company I work for we are (rarely) asked to go to the company webshop and have a look around to see if it runs as it is supposed to do and to order items (no payment made) that have changed on the website or are new.
If the call comes at a time that is unsuited for you, you can ask your caller to come back to you at a later time or in a different way.
For us it is often a random walk past on our work-spot followed by an e-mail or something like that, when we have agreed but need more information.
If the caller is of a part of your company but not one you expect to be contacted by, you can ask them to go through the appropriate channels.
I get the same on a daily basis. Most of them are purely marketing calls. I used to be polite and simply answer their questions and concerns initially. But once it became a hassle and waste of my time, I just hangs up without replying.
Take the other answers. As an exception, if you know that your name is very similar to that of a person who would be appropriate, you can tell them the correct name, but no further help. Like "I think you want to talk to Michael Bollander. Sorry, I don't have his number".
