By Melissa Hinrichs, Director of Client Services
In 2003, the National Do Not Call List was implemented by the Federal Government. However, long before that, states began implementing their own Do Not Call lists. Today there are 13 states that have their own state-specific Do Not Call registries which are maintained separately from the National Do Not Call list.
States which maintain their own Do Not Call (DNC) list:
- Colorado
- Florida
- Indiana
- Louisiana
- Massachusetts
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
If you are a telemarketing company or a seller that wants to hire a telemarketing company, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with Do Not Call Regulations. It can be difficult to find all the relevant information, but I recommend that you use a third party scrubbing service, like PossibleNow or DNC.com because these companies are experts at helping you navigate through how to get access to these lists and scrub against them (they are full-service and will handle everything for you). However, it is also good to familiarize yourself with the state-specific telemarketing regulations because different states do provide different types of exemptions for different call types and industries. For example, if you’re doing lead generation for insurance (where the sale will be later closed face to face in an insurance office), then your campaign may be exempt from many of the state-specific Do Not Call lists.
Here at Quality Contact Solutions, we use an online tool called PACE USA DNC Regulatory Guide: www.paceregulatoryguide.com to easily identify what Do Not Call Regulations apply to different types of telemarketing campaigns and if there are any applicable exemptions that we can apply.
Also, beware that many other states (other than the 13 states listed above) have state-specific Do Not Call regulations, but they use the National DNC Registry for maintaining their list. They don’t maintain a separate list. The PACE Regulatory Guide identifies those states for you.
The important thing to remember is that you must consider both Federal and State-specific regulations to identify which lists you need to scrub against. Again, I recommend that you may want to use a third-party expert to help you.
Within our world of telemarketing, there are rules, exemptions and stipulations that are continuously changing and therefore I would highly recommend using a tool such as the USA DNC Regulatory Guide to easily find all that information in one online source. Keeping up-to-date on the Do Not Call regulations is a very important part to B2C outbound telemarketing.
Melissa Hinrichs is Director of Client Services for Quality Contact Solutions, a leading outsourced telemarketing organization. Melissa leads a talented team that ensures client data and reports are delivered on-time and without errors. With more than 20 years of database management and reporting experience, Melissa loves helping her clients make better business decisions by providing them with relevant data and reports on a daily basis. Melissa can be reached at Melissa.hinrichs@qualitycontactsolutions.com or 516-656-5125.
