Maximum Number of Attempts

Maximum Number of Attempts

New to the forum and a Dialler Manager Job.

Can anyone let me know if there is any legislation with regard to the maximum number of attempts you can make to a customer?

My predecessor had said that the DMA suggested no more than 12 attempts but I can’t seem to find any information.

Question asked by MDA1974

No specific legislation

As far as I’m aware there is no specific legislation regarding max attempts and I’d suggest a lot of outbound centres would run out of data pretty quickly if there was! It’s about maintaining the balance between ensuring you remain productive and at the same time not over-dialling your contacts and generating unnecessary ill feeling. I’d look to ensure that the max attempts per day were kept at around 3 to 4.

With thanks to garthjames

Ofcom regulations

I believe that Ofcom regulations only really have rules around how long you have to leave a number before redialling it if it was identified as an abandoned call. That figure from looking at Jonty’s info is 72 hours, unless a dedicated operator is available to take the call.

Jason

With thanks to Jason

Get some good statistics

If you can get some good statistics around your conversion, utilisation, penetration etc. for a data cycle, you will probably discover that you can get more out of your files by dialling smarter rather than harder.

The guidelines are available at the Ofcom site (Statement on the persistent misuse of an electronic communications network or service aka The Commandments). I won’t paraphrase it. I advise that you study this until you are fully conversant with the sections relative to the type of dialling you intend to do. Make sure people know that you don’t (f)muck around when it comes to Ofcom.

There are restrictions around how many times you can call a number in a day, depending on what technology you are employing and what dispositions have been applied to that customer record etc. You need to study the document.

With thanks to kowalski

Thoughts

I remember I had deployed my solution for a big call center 400+ seats in Canada and they had a requirement that a lead cannot be called more than 4 times…This was for a Financial Process….Unaware of any legal angle to this though from Ofcom .

With thanks to technologyprovider

Dial the same number

In my last position I know that we weren’t allowed to dial the same number more than 3 times in a 24hr period due to legislation-and this did result in us having to plan our dialler activity very carefully as it meant we would quickly run through our lists.

But having said that we where financial services collections company so we were VERY heavily legislated so I don’t know if this applies to other businesses?

With thanks to LukeT

Author: Jonty Pearce
Reviewed by: Robyn Coppell