Regarding call center laws and compliance, there are many abbreviations in the industry literature, such as FCC, FTC, TRACED, TSR, and STIR/SHAKEN. This article focuses on TCPA, a critical piece of legislation for anyone in the call center industry. It regulates telemarketing areas, including auto-dialed calls, text messages, prerecorded messages, and unsolicited faxes. So let us get to the call center laws and TCPA.
The Telephone Customer Protection Act (TCPA) was enacted in 1991 to regulate automated telemarketing, and it was updated in 2015 to include wireless and SMS telemarketing.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) establishes strict consent regulations for the usage of prerecorded messages. Phone, mobile, SMS, fax, and automated calling are all options.
It also established the do-not-call laws that led to the establishment of the National Do Not Call Registry in 2003.
The Telephone Customer Protection Act prohibits firms from conducting telemarketing calls, sending text messages, or broadcasting prerecorded communications to customers without first gaining their express agreement.
Call centers must consider measures to avoid incurring a fine of USD 16,000 per incident levied by the TMCA while planning outbound campaigns.
Call centers must adhere to several call center laws and rules when using live agents or automated dialing software to make outbound calls.
They must maintain a strategy to demonstrate that not all outbound calls are launched in violation of the TCPA.
To get the best out of them, the call center managers must implement several TCPA-compliance tips and best practices on call center laws. This section includes the top 15 proven tips for customer support experts and managers.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) forbids businesses from making sales calls or sending promotional text messages to a cell phone number without the owner's permission.
By deleting cell phone numbers from the telephone number database, a call center can quickly lessen the risk of breaking call center laws and TCPA rules.
The TCPA regulations for landline and cell phone numbers are different. The call center managers should keep in mind to use it when necessary.
Call centers must leverage new-age software to detect and remove non-consenting cell phone numbers automatically.
The TCPA forbids call centers from making outbound sales calls to landline numbers without the owner's prior written approval.
On the other hand, call centers are prohibited from sending promotional text messages, making auto-dialed calls, or broadcasting prerecorded promotional messages to cell phone numbers under the Act.
Call centers use IVR dialers to conduct telemarketing activities without deploying more live operators.
The TCPA, on the other hand, has placed rigorous restrictions on sending prerecorded messages to customers.
Businesses and marketers are prohibited from delivering prerecorded voice messages that do not include the company or client's name.
At the start of the calls, the message must include the organization's name or a specific person.
While recording promotional messages, call center managers must follow the TCPA regulations.
In addition, they need to review the campaign messages at regular intervals to ensure that no call center laws and TCPA regulations are violated.
Auto dialer software assists call centers in managing large-scale marketing campaigns by allowing operators to handle answered calls solely.
On the other hand, auto-dialers cannot evaluate the contact list as thoroughly as live operators. As a result, call centers must combine manual and automated dialing to avoid TCPA violations.
They must provide preview dialers to agents to determine whether to make an outbound call or not.
By obtaining updated client information before launching an outgoing sales call, the preview dialers will assist agents in complying with TCPA rules.
Call centers must prove that the outbound call was made without breaking call center laws when defending TCPA litigation.
When call centers record outbound calls and keep them forever, companies can effectively defend against violation allegations.
Call centers can save time and effort by using cloud-hosted auto-dialers to record outbound calls.
They also allow for call recording and live monitoring. Managers can use the recordings to assess call quality and defend against TCPA lawsuits.
People who do not want to be bothered by commercial calls or texts typically register their phone numbers with the Do Not Disturb (DND) registry.
The call centers must ensure that no outbound calls are made to DND-enabled customers.
Managers must examine if the auto dialer supports DND filtering when evaluating outbound dialing options.
The DND filtering feature ensures that the auto-dialer does not make outbound calls to clients who have shown that they do not want to receive marketing calls or messages.
Before using automated marketing calls, managers must seek written and agree with customers, according to the TCPA.
As a result, no call center can effectively execute outbound marketing without first getting customer authorization.
They must have a plan for getting customers to sign agreements allowing them to conduct telemarketing activities.
However, managers must keep in mind that customer authorization for marketing and non-marketing calls is different.
They can make outbound calls to remind people about payments or collect dues without getting permission first.
They cannot make automated marketing calls or send promotional SMS without the users' approval.
The TCPA is designed to prevent customers from receiving unwanted sales calls. However, when using live agents and automated dialing software to make outbound calls, customer service providers must stick to the call center laws and rules.
By providing complex capabilities like call recording, DND number recognition, and CRM connection, cloud-hosted auto-dialers assist call centers in being TCPA-compliant.
However, call center managers must remember that TCPA compliance is a continuous effort.
On its own, obtaining opt-in consent for marketing communications is critical; however, it does include non-marketing messages.
Customers who enter their phone numbers agree to be contacted for non-marketing purposes if they:
Customers are more likely to register a complaint, file a filing, or launch a lawsuit if they are repeatedly dialed a single lead.
It also increases the chances of the customer or their telco carrier blocking or flagging your caller IDs.
Use workflow dialing to rest leads after a specified number of calls automatically. Meanwhile, using an Omnichannel strategy will allow you to contact more interested prospects with fewer phone calls.
Create an internal procedure to verify that your business honors client requests to stop receiving calls.
Agents should be trained on how to submit these requests into an internal Do Not Call list, and your scripts should contain a consistent response to the customer's request.
"The customer is always right." Following this adage may appear to be common sense or good business practice.
It is a contact center law as well as a TCPA compliance practice. Customers who feel dissatisfied and insulted are more inclined to take legal action against your organization.
To promote compliance and performance, build a culture at your call center that puts your customers first.
Customers who do not want to be contacted by telemarketers can register their phone numbers with the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) mandates contact centers to maintain written procedures for frequently cleansing their data against the DNC list.
Businesses must keep an internal Do Not Call list that can be compared to the national DNC registry.
You should scrub your data for litigators and serial plaintiffs to secure your call center better.
DNC.com and The Blacklist Alliance are two organizations that offer methods for removing predatory plaintiffs' and attorneys' phone numbers from your lists.
The TCPA requires that telemarketing operations that leave prerecorded messages provide the following information:
Examine all new and existing prerecorded message scripts for compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and state requirements.
Quarterly internal audits of compliance processes and policies can keep call centers on track toward the best path to success.
However, a third party may best handle regular full-scale audits. Therefore, your dedicated counsel can help in another area.
Expert legal counsel may be able to undertake annual comprehensive audits of business procedures to detect and mitigate risk.
Not every dialer is made equal; furthermore, this holds when it comes to compliance.
Your dialer software vendor should be able to assist you with increasing contact rates and conversions.
They should, however, keep their finger on the pulse of the current compliance scenario.
With new laws such as the CCPA and STIR/SHAKEN on the horizon and issues like call blocking and flagging on the rise, your software should be prepared to provide new solutions to the most pressing industry challenges.
Inquire about what your dialer provider is doing to ensure compliance while providing the best results for your contact center.
If your call center is not compliant, it will not work well. Breaking the call center laws could cost businesses customers and money. It eventually put the company out of business. It benefits both parties if you go above to comply with rules and ensure that your practices are updated to reflect new and emerging technology. So why not discover more about using these tips to work in your business? Talk to our team today to find out how.
