| Telemarketing
Compliance
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There are several elements
to the new Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) requirements including:
a new national Do Not Call program, new regulations that impact
how outbound automated systems must operate, and new compliancy
reporting requirements.
The TSR specifies five critical new benchmarks for outbound
systems:
- Abandonment rates cannot exceed 3 percent per day, per campaign
- Calls must ring at least 15 seconds or four rings before disconnection
- When no agent is available within two seconds of a live answer, a
recorded message must state the name and phone number of
the seller for whom the call was placed.
- Businesses are required to keep records of calls and transactions
for up to two years.
- Businesses must adhere to the new Federal 'Do Not Call' listings
Meeting
the 3% Abandon Rate
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To meet the new 3 percent abandon rate regulation, iSource
employs multiple software elements that work in conjunction
with each other as described briefly below:
Call Pacing
iSource’s powerful call pacing algorithm monitors over
30 events each 1/10 of a second and makes real-time adjustments
to the dialing patterns.The iSource pacing algorithm has been
tested to a tolerance of .0025 to the whole number. The user
has the ability to pre-determine a desired abandonment rate
and the highly accurate iSource algorithm will maintain that
setting for each campaign, each day, as required by the FTC
regulation.
Dial Delete
iSource’s ‘Dial Delete’, a key element of
the Call Pacing algorithm, deletes the appropriate number
of telephone numbers from the dialing queue when the Call
Pacing algorithm determines that no agent would be available.
Calls that are in the process of being dialed, but have not
yet initiated a ring at the consumer end are also deleted
from the queue. Dial Delete is essential to maintaining short-term
abandonment rate objectives while still delivering productivity
to the agent.
Configurable Call History Look-back
iSource’s Call Pacing algorithm contains a user configurable
Call History Look-back as one of the parameters that drive
the constant adjustment of the algorithm. The length of time
for each call, the number of busies, number of no answers,
answering machines, wrap time and similar events are some
of 30 data elements measured. The ability to configure the
‘sampling pool’, or Look back history, allows
the user to apply previously learned information from their
lists, call patterns or other activities to increase the precision
of the algorithm. Many solutions hard code this call history
look-back into their software. The inability to adjust the
sampling pool (measure events over a proper amount of call
transactions) can adversely affect your productivity or your
abandonment rate.
Speed of Call Transfer
iSource’s speed of delivering the call to an agent or
for a related event such as a leaving a recorded message is
among the fastest in the industry. iSource achieves this because
its technology can measure the ‘off-hook’ event
provided by the telephone company and begin the transfer to
an agent before the called party has said “Hello”.
This process requires only milliseconds, allowing the agent
to hear part of the answered “Hello”, which increases
agent effectiveness and consumer satisfaction. The iSource
solution can also be configured to use Digital Signal Processing
(DSP) to determine answer events. This common form of answer
tection, the only answer detection found in most solutions,
has valid applications for many contact centers. Digital signal
processing begins to measure events at a later time than ‘off-hook’
detection – often based on the “Hello”.
The speed of transfer to an agent is slower and the algorithm
adjustment is delayed. Because iSource offers both options,
the consumer can select which is most appropriate for their
center.
Meeting the 2 Second Rule
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To meet the requirement to transfer a call to an agent within
two seconds or play a recorded message if no agent is available,
iSource takes advantage of its technology and speed of transfer
for compliance. iSource was able to adapt its existing Playback
Recording technology to easily meet the new FTC messaging
requirement. Additionally, each of these messaging events
are logged and stored in the database for future reporting
retrieval.
Caller ID Identification and Broadcast
As part of the 2-second rule’s identification messaging
requirement, iSource has the ability to send out variable
DNIS’s based on the specific campaign in operation.
Meeting the 15 Second Ring Rule To meet the requirement to
allow a call to ring 15 seconds or 4 rings, iSource measures
both the required time length and the number of rings. Relying
on only one of these elements could create an irregularity
since rings can be interrupted or start inconsistently. iSource
uses the North American Ring Standard (or locale specific
standards) to measure the length of a ring tone and also counts
rings so that there can be no irregularities.
Do Not Call Compliancy
To meet the new federal and existing state ‘Do Not Call’
requirements, iSource has a multi-faceted program to provide
options for its customers.
Do Not Call Standard Features
iSource provides ‘Do Not Call’ (DNC)
compliance capabilities as a standard feature that allows
the call center to scrub each project with specific Do Not
Call lists – whether they be Federal, state, internally
generated or provided by a list vendor. In addition to the
project specific scrubbing tools, iSource provides a Master
Do Not Call tool that scrubs against all projects or lists
in the system. This is invaluable to call centers or outsourcers
that have multiple projects and lists. The Master DNC tool
was developed years ago to assist clients’ ability to
comply with the Telephone Preference Services Act in the United
Kingdom, the UK’s national equivalent to the new FTC
regulations. Also, iSource has a facility where agents can
easily and quickly add records dynamically to a specific or
master campaign list.
Do Not Call Service Providers
As an additional service for our clients, iSource has created
specific integrations with several Do Not Call service vendor’s
solutions so that the iSource system interoperates in real-time
with the third party solution. iSource has also created relationships
with Do Not Call Service providers who offer batch-type list
cleansing services via the Internet. These third party services
are available to those clients with minimal scrubbing requirements
or internal resource availability. These tools all help centers
keep their lists up to date and fully compliant with a minimal
amount of effort.
Reporting
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The iSource solution provides over two-dozen standardized
reports for use in contact center management and compliancy
reporting and the database structure to store the massive
amounts of data required by the regulations.
Compliancy Reporting
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The iSource database provides users with the capability to
retain unlimited call history on every call for an unlimited
time period.Data is quickly retrievable through the standard
reports or clients can create customized reports to meet any
purpose via iSource’s open-table structure. As part
of the accuracy of iSource’s call history reporting,
the solution includes fractional agent tracking which is crucial
when agents are assigned to multiple campaigns. Call history
also includes multiple campaign and global campaign reporting.
The iSource Call History report shows, for example, each time
a phone number is dialed. Each call is also associated with
a specific project allowing managers to trace compliancy issues.
The ability to relate calling instances to specific projects
is critical since some projects may be subject to compliancy
regulations while other projects are not. iSource’s
expansive compliance reporting capabilities are supported
by Microsoft’s SQL server and Oracle database structure.
Compliancy Summary
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iSource exceeds compliancy regulations today because it was
designed for the future. The specific features meet and exceed
the FTC requirements for performance, database and reporting.
This is based on specific and targeted compliancy features
along with its visionary forward-thinking architecture that
provides the flexibility and adaptability to support advanced
database structures and comprehensive reporting. iSource customers
can be assured that it can meet the changing needs of the
call center whether the need is regulatory, growth or integration.
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