Cold Calling – 4 Pitfalls UK Call Centres Must Avoid
1 – Not being TPS compliant
The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is a free service that allows businesses to register their preference not to receive unsolicited sales and marketing calls. The TPS regulations are enforced by the Information Commissioners Office, who have the power to enforce financial penalties of up to £500,000. In order to safeguard your operation from fines such as this, you should utilise a service such as TPS Compliant from Nexbridge, which works by performing a real time look up against the TPS database to ensure that the number being dialled isn’t TPS registered. If the dialled number is TPS registered, then the service will automatically block the call from being made.
2 – Not recording calls that are made
In many industries it is a regulatory requirement to record calls, however it would be a huge mistake for any call centre to overlook the recording of all inbound and outbound calls. Recording calls is an excellent way of monitoring and correcting staff performance as well as confirming what was said, and by whom on calls where disputes arise. Therefore, call recording should always be implemented in every call centre, regardless of the industry that they are in.
3 – Not minimising abandoned and silent calls
One of the reasons behind the implementation of the Communications Act 2003 was to regulate the call centre industry after the initial over enthusiastic use of diallers in the early 1990s. These regulations have evolved over time, and one of the main concerns of the regulators is the amount of silent and abandoned calls that are being made my predictive diallers, and Answer Machine Detection services. Ofcom have already fined a number of call centres for these very reasons, with the fines ranging between £10,000 and 50,000. Therefore, it is essential to minimise these types of calls to avoid being fined.
4 – Not presenting / presenting an incorrect CLI
Ofcom regulations stipulate that a Calling Line Identifier (CLI) must be presented on all calls that are being made by the call centre agents and diallers. The reason for this is so that callers are able to see the number that is calling them prior to answering the call, or use the BT 1471 service to find out the number of the caller. Again, fines can be imposed for not adhering to this regulation.