If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. You may address any questions to

Transcription

1 October 11, 2013 Thank you again for being a valued Vocalcom customer. We are pleased to provide this letter to discuss changes in the Federal Communications Commission s (FCC s) Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) rules and how our complimentary enhancements to the Vocalcom Hermes.Net v4 system can assist you in your compliance efforts. In addition, we are providing a complimentary Outbound Calling Compliance Guide that includes a summary of relevant Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and Telemarketing Sales Rule requirements, along with a copy of these Federal laws and regulations. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. You may address any questions to vocalcom@vocalcomusa.com FCC TCPA Rule Changes In February 2012, the FCC adopted several changes to its TCPA rules. These changes include: 1. On prerecorded or abandoned telemarketing calls, parties must provide an interactive mechanism allowing a called party to opt out of future calls. If a caller leaves a voic , the voic must include a toll-free number that the called party can call to opt out. Previously, telemarketers only needed to include a telephone number that consumers could call to make an entity-specific Do Not Call request. 2. The permissible rate of abandoned calls is now calculated over the course of a calling campaign or 30 days, whichever is shorter. Previously, the FCC had measured abandoned calls only over 30 days, with no per campaign metric. 3. Parties must obtain prior express written consent for autodialed or prerecorded telemarketing calls to wireless telephone numbers, and for prerecorded telemarketing calls to residential telephone numbers (subject to certain exemptions). Previously, such calls were permissible with prior express written or oral consent. 4. Having an established business relationship with the called party no longer provides an exemption to the prior express consent requirement for prerecorded telemarketing calls to residential telephone numbers. 5. Prerecorded calls to residential lines that deliver a health-care message made by a covered entity or its business associate as defined by the HIPAA Privacy Rule (45 C.F.R ) are now exempt from the prior express consent requirement. Most of these rules are already in effect, and the rest will become effective on October 16, Cote de Liesse - Suite St Laurent - Québec H4T 2B5 CANADA Tel : 188VOCALCOM / Fax :

2 Advantages of the Hermes.Net v4 Solution Vocalcom offers consolidated solutions to help you successfully manage the myriad federal and state telemarketing and outbound calling requirements. Specifically, Vocalcom offers Contact Center Solutions (Contact Center Software, Cloud Contact Center Software, Virtual Call Center Software, Call Center CTI for Salesforce, and Call Center Solution for Avaya); Digital Customer Service (Web Customer Service, Mobile Customer Care, Social Customer Care, and Retail Customer Experience); and Dialers & Call Recording (Predictive Dialer Software, Cloud-Based Call Recording and #1 Hosted Dialer in Salesforce). As explained in more detail in the attached materials, the Hermes.Net v4 system includes a number of features to help you comply with federal regulations, including the new interactive, opt-out mechanism requirements and abandoned call calculation rules; time of day restrictions; ring count and timing rules; and caller ID provisions, among others. In addition, as part of the Hermes.Net v4 system, Vocalcom has developed a safety mechanism that will deactivate predictive dialing and prerecorded message functionality within a specific site environment. When that functionality is deactivated: The system will only enable one-to-one telephone calls in which a live representative must: (1) commence each call by selecting the specific telephone number to be dialed, at the moment it is to be dialed; (2) remain on the line after the call commences, while the call connects to the called party; and (3) remain on the line during the call, after the call connects to the called party. The system cannot dial ahead or dial automatically (i.e., without action and intervention by the live representative). The system cannot engage in any predictive dialing or other dialing approach for which a call could commence without the live representative affirmatively selecting a specific telephone number to be called. There is no delay between when the called party answers the telephone and when the live representative is available to speak with the called party (e.g., a delay caused by connecting the live representative to the called party). Calls cannot be abandoned whereby the live representative is unable to speak with the called party. The system cannot place any prerecorded message calls. The Hermes.Net v4 system also has no ability to generate, store, produce, or dial random or sequential numbers. It does not have random or sequential number generation, storage, production, and dialing as a functioning feature (that feature has not been built into the system), 6700 Cote de Liesse - Suite St Laurent - Québec H4T 2B5 CANADA Tel : 188VOCALCOM / Fax :

3 and it cannot function unless the user provides specific telephone numbers and other account or customer information. In addition, users are prohibited from modifying the system to enable random or sequential number generation. Thank you again for your continued business. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. Regards, George Seroukas EVP North America Vocalcom Corporation, Inc Cote de Liesse #102 Montreal, Quebec H4T2B5 Canada 6700 Cote de Liesse - Suite St Laurent - Québec H4T 2B5 CANADA Tel : 188VOCALCOM / Fax :

5 Introduction Companies are required to comply with an array of federal and state laws and regulations that govern telemarketing and other outbound communications. For example, the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) implements the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ( TCPA ) and the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) enforces the Telemarketing Sales Rule ( TSR ). Both the TCPA and the TSR authorize enforcement by government regulators and private rights of action (including class actions), and there are substantial penalties for noncompliance. Vocalcom offers consolidated solutions to manage these myriad requirements successfully. Specifically, Vocalcom offers Contact Center Solutions (Contact Center Software, Cloud Contact Center Software, Virtual Call Center Software, Call Center CTI for Salesforce, and Call Center Solution for Avaya); Digital Customer Service (Web Customer Service, Mobile Customer Care, Social Customer Care, and Retail Customer Experience); and Dialers & Call Recording (Predictive Dialer Software, Cloud-Based Call Recording and #1 Hosted Dialer in Salesforce). This document describes how to configure Hermes.Net to comply with the applicable regulations. The solutions we will detail here apply to: Abandoned Call Rules Opt Out Mechanism Time of Day Restrictions Ring Count Requirements Caller ID Requirement If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. You may address any questions to vocalcom@vocalcomusa.com This document has been developed to assist you in your TCPA and TSR compliance efforts. The information contained herein is not intended to provide legal advice and should not be relied on in lieu of a consultation with an attorney. In addition, although this document is focused on TCPA and TSR requirements, state laws may also apply. Copyright VOCALCOM All rights reserved. 2/7

6 Abandoned Call Rules Entities placing autodialed calls must abandon less than 3% of the calls per calling campaign or per 30 days, whichever is shorter. A call is considered abandoned if it is not connected to a live operator within 2 seconds of the recipient s greeting. The regulation also requires that, for abandoned calls, the telemarketer must play a prerecorded message stating only the name of the entity on whose behalf the call was made, a telephone number for such entity that allows the recipient to make a Do Not Call request during regular business hours during the duration of the telemarketing campaign, and that the call was made for telemarketing purposes. These parameters can be set in your outbound campaign configuration as follows: Go to Outgoing media > Outbound calls > Campaigns configuration Select the Dialing tab and make the following changes: Set the %Retention to 2. Set the Retention message to point to a.wav file: o Select the magnifying glass button o Select the desired.wav file from the WAV folder Set the Retention time to 2 and select the Save diskette. Figure 1: Set Retention Copyright VOCALCOM All rights reserved. 3/7

7 Opt Out Mechanism In addition, for abandoned calls, the telemarketer must provide an interactive opt-out mechanism during the call, which, when used, automatically records the recipient s number to the seller s Do Not Call list and terminates the call. This is achieved by constructing an IVR to play the necessary messages and opt out options, as displayed in the following IVR scenario: Figure 2: Create IVR for Opt Out and DNCL Copyright VOCALCOM All rights reserved. 4/7

8 Once the IVR is created, assign it to the outbound campaign as follows: Go to Outgoing media > Outbound calls > Campaigns configuration Select the Dialing tab and make the following changes: Set the Retention message to point to an IVR: o Select the Voice script checkbox o Select the magnifying glass button o Select the desired IVR from the IVR folder (Note: you must create and generate your IVR prior to this step) Select the Save diskette. Figure 3: Set Retention message to IVR Copyright VOCALCOM All rights reserved. 5/7

9 Time of Day Restrictions Telemarketing calls are allowed between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. every day (recipient s local time), unless the recipient has given prior consent for a different time. This is achieved by applying time zone rules to your call files after they are uploaded as follows: Go to Outgoing media > Outbound calls > Calls files Select the desired call file, then select the Time Zones button at the bottom right of the window. Go to Time zones assignment > Parameters and set the Time interval allowed for calls to: Calls from 08:00 to 21:00, then select the Next button. The wizard will update all the records in the call file to respect the time zone regulations, and will display the result of how many records were updated. Press the Terminate button to exit the wizard. Figure 4: Set Time Zones If you are in doubt as to whether or not you have applied the time zones against your calls file, you can check by selecting the History of actions done on the callfile button. If you have applied the time zones, it will be noted in the history. The button looks like this: Figure 5: History button Copyright VOCALCOM All rights reserved. 6/7

10 Ring Count Requirements An unanswered telemarketing call must not disconnect for at least 4 rings or 15 seconds. This is achieved as follows: Go to Outgoing media > Outbound calls > Campaigns configuration Select the Dialing tab and make the following changes: Set the Max ring number on the dialing campaign to 4 or higher and select the Save diskette. Figure 6: Set Max ring number Caller ID Requirement Telemarketers must transmit caller ID information. This is set per campaign, as follows: Go to Outgoing media > Outbound calls > Campaigns configuration Select the General tab and make the following changes: Set the Display to prospect dropdown to A specific phonenumber, then type the number in the Phonenumber to display field, then select the Save diskette. Figure 7: Set Caller ID Copyright VOCALCOM All rights reserved. 7/7