In just a couple of weeks, new Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) laws kick in. If you’re a marketer or sales team leader, you need to make sure that you’re 100% compliant in how you contact your customers and prospects. Otherwise, your company may become the target of a class action lawsuit. Be smart, and take action. Here’s what to know:
A Primer on the TCPA
As you probably know, the TCPA was passed into law in 1991. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a series of rules and regulations to protect consumers against damaging telemarketing calls from advertisers. These include automated calls, robocalls with live respondents or pre-recorded messages, and automated text messages.
New Changes: What to Know
Beginning October 16th, marketers will need written consent before sending telemarketing calls or text messages. The exception includes calls that are manually dialed, that do not include a pre-recorded message.
Be smart, and be cautious. If you’re too aggressive, or if you ignore these rules, you expose yourself to significant risk. And ultimately, anything that goes wrong will fall on you.
Speak2Leads has hired an attorney to ensure that our products are 100% safe. Here is what we’ve learned along the way:
- The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) makes it generally illegal to deliver a prerecorded message to a consumer (cell or landline) or to a business cell phone, unless you have prior express written permission to do so.
- The national Do-Not-Call (DNC) list protects the numbers of individuals who added themselves to the list.
- It is illegal to use an ‘automatic telephone dialing system’ to call any cell phone (business or consumer) without proper written consent.
- Remember that state telemarketing rules vary widely and you can read about them at TelemareketingCompliance.com. Certain states require licensing and bonding for companies that use any form of telemarketing. You can read about these requirements at TelemarketingLicenses.com and TelemarketingBonds.com.
- The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) makes it illegal to deliver a prerecorded marketing message to your prospect unless you have prior express written permission to do so.
- It is also illegal to use any form of automated dialing to call a cell phone without proper consent. This pertains to both business and consumer telephone numbers.
- Thankfully, it is still compliant to send prerecorded messages to business landlines without consent.
- The messages you send must promptly inform the call recipient about: (1) who you are and why you are calling, (2) your real telephone number, and (3) how to avoid future calls through an automated (interactive voice or key-press) opt-out process. Additionally, the national Do-Not-Call (DNC) list protects the numbers of individuals who added themselves to the list. Read about the DNC list at DoNotCallLaw.com. Violations of telemarketing law carry significant penalties, which you can read about at TelemarketingFines.com.
- Be aware that certain states prohibit autodialing altogether. Read up on other important federal and state robocall rules at AutoDialerLaw.com.
It’s an understatement to say that these laws present a confusing situation for lead-driven marketers and sales teams. Suffice it to say it is safe to continue using Lead Response S2L. Because it is not an auto dialer. It calls you or your sales reps and they manually press ‘2″ to call the lead. However, it can’t hurt to add a check box for written permission to auto dial the prospects cell phone later using Lead Revival.
When using Lead Revival S2L for your old leads now, we will scrub out the cell phones for you and then you are good to call business land lines with a prerecorded message following the scripting requirements mentioned above.
If you have questions or need a helping hand, feel free to reach out to us personally. We’re in this together and here to help each other learn.
-Sammy