Does your business carry out its own telemarketing or outsource to a call centre?
Either way, telemarketing has a number of regulations and standards which you need to know about before embarking on the complicated world of telesales.
As we’ve mentioned before telemarketing should form part of your overall marketing strategy, so although it can be used for cold calling (not recommended) it performs better when part of a multi-channel strategy. For example, let’s say you’ve sent out an email or direct mail to prospect data the perfect way to follow up these leads is calling them.
Whether you use your sales team or employ a call centre we’ve put together the regulations that surround telemarketing;
Data Protection Act 1998
This is not just limited to your telemarketing activity, anywhere you are using consumer data your business must ensure it complies with the data protection act of 1998. The rule includes, but is not exclusive to; data must be kept safe and secure, used for limited, specifically stated purposes, used fairly and lawfully and handled according to data protection rights.
Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) Interception of Communications Regulations 2000
This regulation relates to the act of intercepting, recording and monitoring telephone calls. A business can only intercept, record or monitor calls in the following instances;
- To provide evidence of a business transaction
- To ensure that a business complies with regulatory procedures
- To see that quality standards or targets are being met in the interests of national security
- To prevent or detect crime to investigate the unauthorised use of a telecom system
- To secure the effective operation of the telecom system.
Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003
The purpose of this regulation is for consumers and businesses to stop any unwanted marketing calls, either by telephone, email or SMS. It is the ICO (Information Commissioners Office) who is responsible for enforcing against unsolicited calls, emails and SMS messages. The penalty for this offence can carry a £500,000 fine – so be aware of who you are calling, do you have their permission?
Click here for more information on the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations
The above regulation also relates to the TPS, telephone preference service. This is a service paid for by the DMA, regulated by Ofcom and is a legal requirement for all businesses not to make calls to any phone number, consumer or business, registered on the list.
Any business partaking in telemarketing needs to ensure their data is clean of any TPS records, this can be done through MarketingFile’s data cleansing services, we also check against the MPS, mailing preference, and FPS, fax preference and Baby MPS. The latter check is crucial for businesses targeting new families, in the circumstance of the death of a baby mailings to parents can cause unintended pain, by checking your lists against the baby MPS this can prevent such action occurring.
For more information on our TPS services please call us on 0845 345 7755 or email [email protected]
