Best Practices for a Proactive Approach to Compliance

• Audit your third-party data providers. Knowing that all your data is compliant is crucial. As Griffin put it, “At the end of the day, [the FTC] didn’t care if it was the vendor [who was at fault.] We were the ones who dialed, and we were responsible.”

• Scrub against a litigator list like DNC.com or Blacklist Alliance. Griffin says that you will probably find a surprised by the number of potential litigators among your data. “If I’m buying five to ten thousand new opt-ins a day, I’m getting four to five hundred people on these litigator lists that are then blocked [and not dialed].”

• Maintain a data retention schedule. Nima Hakimi said to work with your dialer partner to ensure your data is correctly backed up so that you can prove compliance. “It’s really important to be proactive around how you’re going to keep the data and your records. Ask your dialing provider how long they are going to keep it, how often it is going to be backed up. Because a lot of the time if you don’t say anything it will just be deleted after a certain number of days.” This is essential since, as Mac Murray mentioned, the FTC statute of limitations is 6 years—and there are state regulators who have no statute of limitations at all.

• Conduct a third-party internal audit. A team of outside experts can tell you where your weaknesses are and help you get a process in place. Because a lot of the issues at stake are not black-and-white, Mac Murray said, an audit can tell you where your risk is higher.

How Your Dialer Software Can Support Compliance Beyond best practices, Griffin said that technology can play a crucial role in supporting compliance. And for outbound sales and lead gen teams, that starts with having the right dialing software features. Among the features that Griffin detailed were:

• Dynamic Scripting. Griffin said dynamic scripting is a must-have at call centers dialing across different states. Automatically give your reps the state-specific scripts they need to stay compliant—and make the right sales pitch.

• Tools and Strategies for Smarter Outreach. Your dialer should have Call Count Settings that limit the number of times you call a single lead. It should also support omnichannel outreach. Utilizing text and email in tandem with dialing can help you lower your call count while still reaching customers effectively.

• Time of Day Call Restrictions. According to Griffin, “Your technology should make it so you’re never calling outside the hours that you’re allowed to call.”

• Abandon Rate Settings. This setting can help you strike a balance between a high call rate for agents and a low abandonment rate that meets compliance standards.

Be Proactive and Assume the Audit

Nima Hakimi summed things up by emphasizing the role of compliance for successful call centers. “You have to keep compliance at the heart of what you do. You need to be proactive and operate as if you’re going to get audited and there are going to be complaints. That’s the best advice I can give: Have the assumption that it’s going to happen, not IF it’s going to happen. If you can operate like that, you will be in a much better position.”

Discover how Convoso can help your call center navigate complex compliance issues and increase conversions for your sales and lead generation teams. Request a demo today to see our dialer in action. And stay up-to-date with the latest developments on the Convoso contact center blog.