5 Dumb Reasons to Not Use Ringless Voicemail.

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Some companies just aren’t going to take advantage of the polite, discrete delivery capabilities of ringless voicemail. Even after their business qualifies for use by the top ringless providers. Even after looking at their vendor agreements and seeing no conflicts with this method of contact. Even after using ringless for awhile and making a lot of money! We’ve seen legal teams get cold feet and abruptly terminate direct to voicemail campaigns, even though we’ve never heard of any legal difficulties with the technology. And although debt collectors, for example, pay millions in fines for other types of collection procedures - consolidate, or go out of business paying TCPA related fines - Ringless Voicemail still remains the only method of consumer contact that hasn't been to court.

5 Dumb Reasons to Not Use Ringless Voicemail.

Our lawyer said it was too dangerous.

Mention “voicemail” and “automated delivery” in the same sentence to most legal teams and you’ve lost em’. The thought of leaving a message or a “trail” left by the recording is too much. Companies like Sallie Mae (now Navient) have been so beat up by their own voice broadcasting violations they won’t touch ringless. Even though it doesn't call folks at all hours, doesn’t allow several “drops” in one day, doesn’t charge for the call, doesn’t touch the wirless network and doesn't ring the phone.

2. It’s too expensive.

Although ringless charges only for delivered voicemails, some folks feel it's too pricy. But in addition, it identifies cell lines before each campaign (something the TCPA requires you to do anyway), gives reports as to the “status” of the voicemail, and costs pennies per guaranteed message.

Political callers, for example, pay sub-penny per minute to broadcast their message. Seems like a good deal right? But after the bad faith damage done interrupting everyone, virtually 100% of folks hanging up, lots of calls not going through at all, and now not being allowed to call cells anyway with their technology (please see political call FCC update here) – ringless is something they might want to take a second look at. In fact, one ringless company ONLY does political calls now.

3. We can’t get the right message.

Believe it or not, the most effective message on ringless seems to include nothing more than your company name, why you called, and a callback request. It’s called the “Zortman” style message – based on the debt collector JC Christensen defending themselves successfully . The Judge claimed this message provided “nothing more than you could get from calling directory assistance, or from the internet.”

4. We’re afraid of losing our vendor contracts with inappropriate communication.

A major student loan servicer actually spent over a million dollars to take on 150 additional reps to replace what Ringless was doing for $30,000 per month. Their lawyers felt this was a much safer approach to retain their big contract for servicing the loans – although ringless hadn’t received any complaints at all in our first heavy year of use. In fact, one debt collector pointed out in the April 4’th 2014 issue of Collection Advisor that, “On a manual cell phone call dialing campaign, consumers would often complain about or collectors calling at an inconvenient time (because of the interruption). Not so with Direct-To-Voicemail.”

5. Ringless rings the phone now and then!

True – every once in a while ringless might produce a “tink” or partial ring. Some compliance departments will say, “If it ever produces one partial noise ever, in any circumstance, then it’s not compliant.” The truth is, cell technology is over 30 years old. And the systems it uses are not stagnant. Throw in the use of many carriers with slightly varying circuity and it’s a miracle these “landline” calls to landline voicemail servers accessed by the wireless handset work at all!!!

So is Ringless Voicemail too good to be true?

We certainly hope not - because used conscientiously for the right application Ringless affords compliant cell inventory penetrations - without the complaints, hangups and aggravation conventional cell outreach initiatives can cause.

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