If you place outbound telemarketing calls to cellular phone numbers, be sure you understand the rules that apply. Outsourced Telemarketing was significantly impacted in July 2015 when the Federal Communications Commission released a Declaratory Ruling which expanded the definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS). In addition, the ruling provided additional clarification surrounding a telemarketer’s responsibility to identify reassigned telephone numbers and remove them for their call lists and clarified that text messages are also telemarketing calls and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act applies equally to text messages and voice calls. For more information, you can read the full TCPA FCC Declaratory Ruling.
At Quality Contact Solutions, we’ve had significant success with helping our outsourced telemarketing clients successfully contact their existing customers on their cellular phone number(s) using a Non-ATDS Dialer. In short, a Non-ATDS Dialer (spelled out non-Automated Telephone Dialing System), is by definition a system that cannot place calls automatically. Our advice to our outsourced telemarketing clients is to use an old Nortel 8×24 telephone system which cannot be modified to place telemarketing calls automatically. We pop the contact record on the computer screen for the telemarketing agent, the agent dials the telephone (with their fingers) and hangs up the phone after the call is completed. Then the agent selects a call disposition on the computer screen before the next call record is presented to the outsourced telemarketing agent.
Results from using the QCS suggested Non-ATDS Dialer
We’ve found that contacts per hour drop by about 60%, so if on average, we were hitting 15 contacts per hour using predictive dialing, we have seen a drop to about 6 contacts per hour. However, we’ve found that the sales conversion rate increases by about 30%, so the net decrease in sales per hour has been about 45% (still a decrease, but with many client programs, it is better to make the contacts in a less productive manner vs not calling these customers at all).
With some client programs, we’ve been able to change the time of day to evening only (best contact period), and we’ve been able to maintain a sales per hour that is only slightly below the previous performance using a predictive dialer environment.
Keep in mind that it is best to work towards gaining prior express written consent to place telemarketing sales calls to your customers, but in the absence of such consent, rest easy that Quality Contact Solutions can help you create a defendable process for placing such calls legally using a Non-ATDS Dialer.
Give us a call and ask us how today. Call 866.963.2889 and press 1 for sales.
