Silent Calls - where's it heading?

Do you operate power diallers in your call centre? Are you busy managing 'No Agent Available' (NAA) stats and the ratio of silent versus completed calls? If you are, then no doubt you are also struggling with the complex issue of compliance versus best practice versus profitability. In the UK, this particular potato is warming up nicely! BT have clearly spotted this as a major cause for concern and have invested heavily in promoting their new ‘BT Privacy’ package in an attempt to win ‘hearts and minds’ and customers of course! But what are the business drivers here; is it legislation, codes of practice, or ‘people power’? In an article recently published on the iCompli website and our free subscription newsletter, Duncan Smith examines the issues behind compliance and the Silent Call. Grab your copy here Silent calls 101 What’s a silent call? According to the Ofcom website “Silent calls are those calls where the called person hears silence on answering. A common cause of such calls is that the call has been terminated before the called person has had time to answer. These calls are often generated by automated calling systems (also referred to as power diallers or automated calling equipment) used by call centres” What’s the problem? People are complaining; to BT, to Ofcom to the DTI. They’re not happy about silence, and many feel threatened by the lack of person (or message) when they pick up the phone. According to Ofcom, BT is receiving over 160,000 silent call complaints, per MONTH! In a recent survey for the DMA (Brookmead Report) 12% of Telephone Preference Service (TPS) registrations were directly attributed to silent calls. Where is this all heading? An ever-diminishing pool of phone numbers that can legitimately receive unsolicited direct marketing calls, that’s where! Here’s a ‘fag-packet calculation’ to get you thinking.

• The number of residential phone lines at end of 2004 stood at 34 million
• The total number of phone lines registered on TPS by mid-2005 was 7.4 million, leaving an available pool of around 26.8 million.
• At the same time, new registrations on TPS stood at 73,000 per week on a rapidly rising trend.

In less than 7 years, there will be no one left to call.