Kevin Brennan, Charles Hendry and John Hemming, MPs for the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties respectively, feature on the DVD acknowledging the problem of silent calls and welcome Ofcom's new policy statement on 'persistent misuse of communication networks'.
The aim is three-fold, says John Price, who has been one of the driving forces behind the project and is chairman of the DMA Contact Centre and Telemarketing Council and managing director of outbound telemarketing firm Price Direct. "We want to let members know what the DMA is doing in this area, encourage participation and support from stakeholders and ensure that more people apply the DMA Code," he says.
Robert Dirskovski, head of interactive media at the DMA, says that predictive diallers are used extensively outside the direct marketing community.
"More than 60 per cent of predictive-dialler installations in the UK are managed by financial service institutions, primarily for debt collection.
Diallers are also used widely by the public services sector in government-to-citizen situations, so this is not just a DMA or telemarketing issue," he says.
The good news is that the Ofcom rules provide total clarity on compliance in this area and a level playing field for all companies using diallers.
They also apply equally to offshore sites, as an Ofcom spokesman underlines: "We will take action to enforce the new rules where appropriate, including investigations of UK-based organisations using offshore call centres, which are found to be in breach of specific requirements," he says. He adds that companies are required to keep records for a minimum of six months to demonstrate their compliance.
The DMA has had an important role in the development of the Ofcom rules. "We believe we've tackled this issue rigorously," says Dirskovski. "Broadly speaking, Ofcom has validated our Code of Practice."
The DVD includes background information to the current state of play, including the rising levels of TPS registrations in recent years - the TPS file tops 12 million subscribers. It looks at Ofcom's adjudications against companies including Kitchens Direct, which prompted a wider review of the rules relating to silent calls and the findings of the DMA Silent Calls Research, which was commissioned by the DMA and confirmed Ofcom's concerns about the impact of silent calls on the public.
The DMA Silent Calls Research consumer survey - the first full-scale review of the nuisance call issue in the UK - found that 22 per cent of the public feel anxious when they receive a silent call and 37 per cent are unacceptably inconvenienced.
These negative responses - inconvenience and anxiety - should be addressed by the new rules. The abandoned call-rate must now be below three per cent of all calls made in any 24-hour period for any campaign and all abandoned calls must carry a short recorded information message identifying the source of the call.
Perhaps, most importantly of all, Ofcom can fine companies that infringe its rules. Earlier this year, the Government said that the maximum financial penalty that Ofcom could impose would be increased from 拢5,000 to 拢50,000 for each breach of the rules. The fine will come into effect later this year and follows a separate DTI consultation.
"We now have powers that will enable us to act effectively against silent calls," says Ofcom chief executive Stephen Carter. Ofcom's enhanced powers effectively takes the issue of silent calls out of the call-centre environment and into the boardroom, says John Price.
"The boards of companies will have to take notice," he says. "It's not the dialler managers who will be held to account, but the people at the top of an organisation who might not even be aware that their company uses predictive diallers."
The DMA recognises that it needs to distribute the messages to as wide an audience as possible and hopes to work with bodies such as the Market Research Society as well as the public sector.
All those who attended the TPS Forum at last month's IDFM received a free copy of the half-hour DVD.
To download the material, visit www.silentcalls.dma.org.uk.
KEY REQUIREMENTS OF THE NEW OFCOM RULES
- Abandoned call rates must be below three per cent of all calls made in any 24-hour period for each campaign. Ofcom believes that setting a three per cent limit will reduce the volume of abandoned calls, while allowing the legitimate and responsible use of automated calling systems.
- All abandoned calls must carry a short recorded information message identifying the source of the call.
- Calling line identification (CLI) must be included on all outbound calls generated by automated systems. CLI allows people to dial 1471 and access the telephone number of the person or organisation calling them.