Silent call regulations have affected seven in ten contact centres

A survey reveals that 70 per cent of contact centres have changed their outbound operations over the last 12 months in response to Ofcom’s revised March 2006 regulations on outbound calls.

ProtoCall One, a systems integration consultancy, has unveiled the results of its webinar on silent calls, which polled outbound dialler contact centres one year after Ofcom’s new regulations on silent calling were introduced.  The results also show that only 20 per cent of the attendees could claim the new rules have had ‘no impact’ on their outbound operations.

The results of the ProtoCall One survey come just over a year after Ofcom published a new policy on persistent misuse of outbound diallers. It asserted that a company using diallers for outbound operations must have a call abandonment rate of no more than three per cent on live calls within any 24 hour period. Additionally, contact centres must ensure that, in the event of a silent call, a brief recorded information message must be played within two seconds of the call being answered.

Frank Phillips, Consumer Manager at Ofcom, commented: “A couple of years ago silent calls were becoming a real menace, and had risen to unacceptable levels. There have been significant efforts to comply with our new regulations so far – the industry as a whole has clearly invested in dramatically cutting down on silent calls. However, we cannot be complacent – BT and Ofcom still receive a large number of complaints each month. Ofcom has just this week extended its ongoing, market-wide investigation by a further six months and will continue to take rigorous action against the worst offenders.”

“The survey shows that Ofcom has been successful in its objective to get contact centres to reduce the number of silent calls they produce,” commented Simon Gresswell, Director of Professional Services at ProtoCall One. “The genuine threat of financial penalties – as well as the bad publicity of being ‘named and shamed’ by Ofcom – has forced the contact centre industry to take action. As a consequence, many companies have invested heavily in new dialler technology, believing this to be the only way to avoid being prosecuted. However, this isn’t the case – as T-Mobile demonstrated at the webinar: the most important step an organisation can take is to implement effective business processes into outbound operations. This way you will comply with Ofcom regulations and add considerable value to your contact centre.”

ProtoCall One’s silent calls webinar took place on 25th April 2007, and featured speakers from Ofcom, T-Mobile and Genesys. As well as discussing the technicalities of Ofcom’s latest rules, topics of debate included the operational, legal and technological aspects of developing new business processes around the regulations. ProtoCall One’s consulting expertise helps companies to identify the key business strategies to both comply with new laws and enhance an entire outbound operation.

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