| Comment Number: | OL-105913 |
| Received: | 12/5/2004 1:04:53 PM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Ragouzis |
| State: | CA |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
**** has an established relationship: Sounds fine, provided the definition of "established relationship" includes two things: evidence of opt-in, and a readily-available opt-out mechanism apart from responding to the prerecorded message. You see I would like to hear from my local wine shop, until I've decided to switch; and I never want to hear from my auto repair guy. In neither case does our commercial exchange grant them additional surplus over the transaction profit. I may tolerate the overreach from one vendor, but not the other. That is my choice, and not for their presumption. Further, both had better make it convenient for me to effect my control over this 'external' asset, my telephone and time. ****abandonment: This is bogus. The campaign is the unit of value for TeleMktrs, closely measured to deliver income, and margin. When it comes to automated delivery, the hour measure presents only a small limitation to TeleMktrs -- a month of hours even less. Why is that? Because between increasing equipment capacity and the apparent pent-up demand the TeleMktrs claim, almost any level of abuse of one set of targeted consumers on a high-value pay-for-performance campaign can be offset by shifting into that same 30 days an almost unlimited number of pay-per-hour campaign work, probably targeting different customers. By itself that offsetting pay-per-hour campaign need not even cover unit costs (which in automated calling is very low), provided that on balance the net is profitable. The profit comes in pay-per-performance because the TeleMktr is willing to place whatever number of abandoned calls is necessary to locate a live consumer. And that offsetting pay-per-hour work? Well, in this arrangement it could even be worth it for the TeleMkrt to offer it nearly for free, perhaps as a "last minute offer" for the month, but more likely as a regular subscription to "unused capacity," which I guess would also generate even larger demand for calling.