Comment Number: 525547-00012
Received: 10/11/2006 3:26:00 PM
Organization: Beautyrock
Commenter: Stan Body
State:
Subject: Telemarketing Sales Rule
Title: Request for Public Comment
CFR Citation: 16 CFR Part 310
No Attachments

Comments:

I was pleased to see the FTC acknowledge questions and indeed make rulings on predictive dialler use. Beautyrock is an outbound telemarketing service bureau and a member of the DMA. We make about 500,000 completed calls per month, mostly to the U.S.A. for U.S. clients. The recent pre-recorded calls ruling does not address our specific problem, causing our clients significantly higher costs that are not necessary due to the "2 second live answer" legislation which rules out one big reasonable and beneficial alternative. My company has over many years developed a system to not abandon any one. We use this system in Canada very successfully resulting in 1. no abandons 2. as much as 20% productivity improvement and 3. no complaints from consumers. The system is designed to not abandon any one, to keep telemarketing costs lower than otherwise and most significantly to close the door completely on frightening or rude dead air abandons including the 3% safe harbour abandons. Our "no abandon" system is not used to sell or get leads. It is used to maximize the efficiencies of using a predictive dialler by completing more calls per hour, that is to talk live with more live answers per hour, while offending no one, not even the 3% live answers permitted under safe harbour rules. The purpose of the system is to improve productivity while offending no one. As with inbound telemarketing the "no abandon system" simply asks a customer to hold on for a few seconds for a live telemarketer. Our recorded message that the FTC/FCC purport to protect consumers from is not a sales pitch. It is only used when all live telemarketers are still on another call, but will be available in seconds. The prime purpose of predictive diallers is to significantly improve productivity. How they are used is critical! Our "no abandon system" offends no one, based on millions of calls before and after legislation in Canada and the U.S.A. When this "no abandon system" is used and when our predictive dialler gets a live answer and a telemarketer is not available, the dialler plays this recorded message immediately. "This is XYZ Company, I am on another line. Please hold for a few seconds." Most consumers wait as requested and are connected to a live telemarketer within an average of 11 seconds. The range is 0 seconds to about 20. No one is left wondering, who is calling and consumers simply are not fearful of anything and we abandon no one The 2 second live answer rule cancels, kills, this opportunity to not offend anyone by abandoning, and it kills the opportunity to get the most efficiency from a predictive dialler. Very few people "hang up" on the message and when they do we try calling again at a later time and usually connect live without the recorded message. Using this system, most consumers get a live telemarketer anyway without using the recording. I know the system works. It even uses a less sophisticated and cheaper predictive dialler with very simple algorithm software. I am asking you again to open your file on this critical subject that has no downsides, many benefits and fits the productivity goals of our businesses and governments without the offenses built into the current 3% abandon "safe harbour" rules. Please respond. Sincerely Stan Body President P.S. Outbound telemarketing has taken deathly hits these past few years. We are still vulnerable to the horrible consequences of the Do Not Call legislation. Almost every consumer phone is on the list. We know that numbers were added by the thousands, even millions by enemies of outbound telemarketing, not one at a time like the legislation intended. Many outbound telemarketers have closed their doors. Hardly any one gets a telemarketing call any more! In addition to more legislation, our industry is facing "consumer decisions" to use call identification, answering machines, and simply not answering the phone to telemarketers when appropriate. That is, they don't need legislation to make these decisions. In the meantime and in spite of the above, millions of consumers want to hear from us, the proof being their high rate of positive response to our calls. Outbound telemarketing is validated every day by merchants, fund-raisers even political parties advertising their benefits and asking for an informed one-on-one decision over the phone. Respectfully, I ask you to look at a piece of outbound telemarketing that offers a better product with less offence and contributes in a huge way to healthy economics all over the world just like other advertising media have helped make a better life for the majority in our democracies. Please respond!