It’s easy for businesses to get confused on these two critical compliance issues.
Both procedures are important when reaching out to existing customers and prospects. Both exist because of the FCC’s attempts to clarify enforcement of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. And both can be confusing to businesses and call center managers. So let’s take a peek together. Before some hotshot attorney or Government Authority does it for you!
Failure to prove express written consent calls has become rampant. But TCPA Lawyers don't seem to be concerned.
Call centers must understand: Someday, you may need to prove prior express written consent when challenged in court. And that's for or everyone you touch throughout your business outreach initiatives. TCPA defense attornies in attendance at a recent teleservices show concurred: "We can't prove our guy had permission to call." But what's really amazing: They either 1. Didn't tell clients about the only sure way to prove consents or 2. Didn't know about it. What's the deal?
According to our informal TCPA Defense Attorney survey at the recent PACE Show in Orlando, FL, formerly the American Teleservices Association, call prohibition defense litigators tell us their biggest challenge is proving express written consent. It seems leads come from so many places, and get handed around so much - you can "spend alot of time and money looking, but you may never find the source of that lead," says Christine Reilly, Partner, TCPA Compliance and Class Action Defense at Manatt. What to do?
A new higher standard of lead validation has emerged to help businesses prove express written consents, prior express consents, and general internet leads are TCPA compliant. It's called Lead Video Proof. With visual playback including every move the prospect made when filling out a company or broker lead form: Dropdown affirmations, mouse movements, affirmative action checks on callback disclosures - everything. Better sharpen your game Mr. TCPA Prosecutor!
Leads changing hands. And changing hands again. Slipping through the system never to be identified. Predatory prosecutors tearing apart supposedly TCPA compliant predictive dialer leads in court. Critical source, date, prospect callback intention information lost or misplaced. Audio recordings erased. It happens alot: "Show me what I filled out, when, where, and prove it." Try handing that needle-in-a-haystack request to your IT director or lead generator. This is what drives Telephone Consumer Protection Act Defense Attorneys nuts.
Many traditional lead procurement solutions don't hold up in court. In fact, most haven’t. Especially when changing hands alot. Too hard to track. Recently, a major solutions provider estimated 85% of web pages were out of TCPA compliance. Almost a third had no express written consent option at all. Lawyers tell us the problem is epidemic.
A provable lead procurement process. The one stickler in the compliance chain we've never been able to solve. Express written consent that will actually hold up under legal scrutiny. Available to all businesses. Last year, 100% of TCPA Defense Attorneys in attendance at the 2015 Compliance Summit in Washington DC were involved in some sort of lead procurement defense. Yet lead brokers claim it’s not an issue. Tell that to the major companies struggling to find call compliant sources of leads and engage customers.
You say your leads are "compliant," yet have no idea what your broker's lead form looks like, how old these leads are, or who else has purchased them. Leads that could turn around and sue you for everything you've got. Today, without a complete visual history of prospect intent as part of your lead procurement process, you're not fully protecting outbound call efforts against class actions in the millions.
A cursory search under “TCPA Compliance Solutions” reveals that lawyer’s opinions are front and center. Connect First, for example, a top call center/ fulfillment house, hired my friend, Nick Whisler, from MacMurray, Peterson & Schuster to endorse their solutions page: “Connect First has taken significant steps to ensure the TCPA Safe Mode Solution is entirely segregated from equipment that is capable of auto-dialing telephone numbers. Calls made by customers using the TCPA Safe Mode Solution are not made using a different “mode” on a predictive dialer; rather, they are made by entirely different equipment."
Dialers, hosted dialers, and fulfillment houses have come a long way since the early days of Do-Not-Call Compliance. Rarely do you hear anymore, “Compliance? We’ve never had a problem before. Don’t worry about it. It’s a free Country, call where you want!” – like in the early days.
Still, dialer DNC / TCPA solutions vary wildly. From completely home grown internal solutions– to certified integration with a top DNC Compliance service provider.
To help keep you out of trouble with out-of-control DNC & TCPA rules and professional consumer litigants wanting to squeeze every drop of money from your challenged coffers!
I also pick up the phone, so you can call my personal line directly at 561-317-3001 with any specific questions.