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When making outbound contact at scale, compliance is becoming an increasingly important consideration for contact centers in many different jurisdictions.

Regulators are introducing stricter requirements for enterprises making outbound contact. As a contact center leader, you often need to be careful to avoid ending up on the wrong side of this type of legislation, or potentially face the risk of heavy fines or other civil penalties.

Here at contactSPACE, we provide outbound contact center solutions that help some of the world’s largest businesses ensure compliance when making outbound contact at scale.

In this article, we’ve explained the most important things for enterprises to consider when it comes to outbound dialing regulations – and how to stay compliant with these rules.

Contents

• How is outbound contact regulated?
• AI outbound calling compliance
• Differences in regulation by country
• Penalties for non-compliance
• Are outbound SMS messages covered?
• How to maintain compliance when outbound dialing

How is outbound contact regulated?

Outbound calling regulation can vary significantly by country (and even by state), but the types of contact they affect tend to have certain similarities.

For example, at a basic level, many outbound calling regulations require that businesses follow the following sorts of principles:

• Ensuring that most types of contact are only made at certain times of day – usually prohibiting making contact overnight for example.
• Ensuring that you identify your business by name when making contact, and provide a method for the customer to opt out of receiving future communications.
• Ensuring that numbers are screened against a certain government-run or government-mandated do not call (DNC) registry, as well as an internal DNC list, to allow consumers to opt out of receiving future calls.
• Ensuring that when predictive dialing, only a certain maximum proportion of customers’ calls are abandoned. Abandonment occurs when the customer has no one to talk to when they answer the phone.
• Requiring that on certain types of interactions, such as fully automated calls, the business has the appropriate level of consent from the customer for them to be contacted in this way.

These regulations can be nuanced, and their impact on your operations can depend on the industry you are in, and the types of contact you make.

For example, there are sometimes exceptions to certain regulations for those in nonprofit industries, such as charities, or for healthcare providers. In this case, prior consent rules may be loosened, or abandonment limits may be changed or waived entirely.

Calls made for the purposes of “solicitation” (sales/telemarketing) often come with their own set of stricter rules as opposed to calls made for the purposes of providing information to the customer, such as appointment reminders.

There are also more specific rules in certain jurisdictions that are not common in other parts of the world. For example, in France, automated outbound calling systems can only present caller IDs from specific number ranges reserved for automated calls and messages, such as 0162/0163.

A given business may also be affected by multiple layers of legislation at the same time, because often, states, countries, and even continental authorities (such as the European Union) have different rules in place concerning outbound calling.

AI outbound calling compliance

Many jurisdictions have implemented specific rules that govern AI-based and other types of automated calling.

AI calling itself is generally not specifically regulated. Instead, it is usually grouped into the same basket as robocalling or automated calling (such as playing a prerecorded message), regardless of whether the AI agent has the ability to progress the call intelligently based on the customer response.

In saying this though, some jurisdictions have specific rules in place concerning AI usage. For example, the EU requires that customers be informed when they are speaking with an AI system.

Compared to using live agents, the main difference with automated calling from a compliance point of view is that you often need consent from the customer for them to be contacted in this way, especially if the call is made for the purposes of marketing or solicitation.

However, this can vary by jurisdiction, and different regulators have different ways of defining what customer consent means. For example, in the US, this is often defined as “prior express written consent”, meaning that the customer has agreed ahead of time in writing, which can generally include opting in online through a form or checkbox.

Differences in regulation by country

In the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, outbound calling regulations can be summarized as follows:

In general, the regulations predominantly apply based on the region you are dialing into, potentially as well as the one you operate from. This means that for a single business dialing internationally, it can easily become the case that there are five, 10, or even more different sets of outbound calling legislation that you have to consider to ensure compliance.

In the US, outbound dialing is generally regulated under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). However, many states have implemented essentially their own versions of the TCPA, sometimes known as “mini TCPAs”.

For example, in Florida and Maryland, companies are prohibited from making more than three calls on the same subject matter, regardless of the telephone number displayed to the customer, in any 24 hour period. Many states also require that telemarketing calls are made between 8am to 8pm, overriding the federal window of 8am to 9pm.

To learn more about the different types of legislation that affect outbound compliance in different jurisdictions, download the contactSPACE Outbound Compliance Handbook.

Penalties for non-compliance

Penalties for non-compliance with outbound calling legislation can vary depending on the jurisdiction.

Some regulatory bodies issue fines for each individual violation, meaning that each individual non-compliant phone call made can attract its own monetary penalty. Others issue fines based on business turnover, depending on the severity of the violation.

Fines can also vary depending on the exact nature of the breach. For example, calling a phone number on a do-not-call registry can attract a different fine than making contact using a non-compliant contact method.

As well as regulator penalties, breaching communications laws can also open a business up to the risk of civil action, such as class action lawsuits.

Are outbound SMS messages covered?

This can again vary by region, but outbound SMS messages are generally treated in much the same way as outbound phone calls for the purposes of regulatory compliance.

This is especially the case when it comes to rules around opt-out facilities, identifying yourself as the business making contact, and obtaining customer consent for certain types of messaging.

However, some rules are specific to voice calls, such as those pertaining to abandonment, so they do not apply to outbound SMS messaging.

How to maintain compliance when outbound dialing

Maintaining compliance when outbound calling can seem complicated, but with the right strategy in place, it is possible to set up automations and guardrails that help to ensure you stay on the right side of the rules – with the right level of oversight in place.

For example, using contactSPACE technology, you have full control to design an effective, compliant contact strategy that helps you achieve strong dialing results, while ensuring compliance with any applicable regulations in the regions you are dialing into.

At a basic level, you can schedule calling to take place at a compliant time of day in the recipient’s time zone, and easily maintain an internal do-not-call list – as well as automatically screen numbers against external DNC registers before making contact.

For larger teams making more complex contact, you can easily set limits on abandonment when predictive dialing, and design your contact strategies around the level of consent that you have available associated with each given contact record.

For example, in some jurisdictions, you may be required to have a different level of consent based on the type of phone number you are contacting (a landline versus a mobile phone for instance).

In this case, you could use different contact strategies, with different levels of automation, depending on the level of consent available, while simultaneously prioritizing your best records with the highest likelihood of converting.

Learn more about how the contactSPACE technology stack helps large enterprises manage their compliance obligations when making outbound calls.