Remy asked:


It is just unfortunate that call centers have acquired a disreputable reputation due to the actions of certain contact center agents and their respective contact center companies that have annoyed, and infringed upon the rights of prospects and customers. This is why in the US, call center agents and their call center companies have to abide by certain laws and regulations such as those set by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)to avoid getting into legal trouble.

One way your call center can be compliant with US laws and regulations is by using the Predictive Dialer system of the Oracle Contact Center Anywhere call center solution offered by Promero. The Predictive Dialer helps your contact center agents prevent as many abandoned outbound calls as they can. An outbound marketing call is considered abandoned when a prospect or customer does answer the call but the telemarketer delays by up to two seconds the transfer of the call to an authorized sales rep. The FTC actually has a special Telemarketing Sales Rule which imposes restrictions on the number of abandoned calls your contact center agents can incur within a day.

You can use the Virtual Call Center feature of the Oracle Contact Center Anywhere call center solution to automatically restrict the percentage of abandoned calls to just 3%. This allows your call center to remain within the boundaries set by the Telemarketing Sales Rule. Another feature of the call center software that can help you meet the Rule requirements is the Predictive Dialing feature which you can set to permit an outbound marketing call to ring only for up to 15 seconds maximum (or four rings maximum) before the unanswered call will be disconnected.

If a marketing call is initiated but the sales representative in charge cannot immediately answer the call, you can set the software to play a pre-recorded message giving details to the prospect or customer who answers the call. The pre-recorded message may contain such details as the company you are calling on behalf for, the contact number of the call center, and for whom you are calling the prospect for (like, for which client and which account you are working for at that time.) The message has to be played within two seconds from the instant someone answer the phone call.

Now what do you do if you want to call someone who may seem like a good prospect but who has made it a point to have himself placed on a Do Not Call list? Actually, you should just look for other prospects because it is illegal to pursue that prospect by even making one phone call. This is a very important rule to follow so that the public knows your organization respects their rights to privacy and their decision not to be bothered with your phone calls.