Are you a business-to-business marketer? If so, it is likely that your business has shown little concern for the TCPA and its consumer cell phone regulations. After all, you’re only seeking to solicit business on landlines which are exempt from DNC and TCPA. But in this era of rampant TCPA lawsuits, you should be as concerned as are business-to-consumer marketers. In many ways the risks are the same.
The problem for B2B marketers is that cell phones are becoming the primary means of communication for many businesses. This evolution has blurred the line distinguishing business and personal phone numbers which are often one the same. It becomes problematic that during the course of your marketing campaigns you will make contact with someone’s personal cell phone.
If your B2B telemarketing involves the use of auto-dialing equipment, you could still be vulnerable to unintentional TCPA violations and a potential victim of predatory attorneys. It only takes one phone call to a personal cell phone and suddenly you’re the target of a TCPA lawsuit against your business.
Contact Center Compliance has several useful tips that could keep you out of court without sacrificing the loss of good callable leads. This list represents the minimal requirements for marketers who want to avoid paying lawyer fees and huge settlements for TCPA violations.
Our focus is on identifying phone numbers you do not want to call. Your business should scrub against the following lists:
5 Major List Scrubbing Solutions
- National Do Not Call List. Database of phone numbers maintained by the federal government of consumers who have requested not to receive telemarketing calls. (National DNC Registry)
- 12 States Do Not Call Lists. Database of phone numbers maintained by the individual states of consumer who have requested not to receive telemarketing calls. (List of States With DNC Lists)
- Wireless ID℠. Data process to identify both wireless carrier blocked numbers and ported wireless numbers. Companies are prohibited from contacting consumers’ cell phones with promotional telemarketing phone calls or text messages without their prior express consent.
- Litigator Scrub®. Data process that identifies known professional litigants hidden in your marketing data. These are people how have filed multiple TCPA lawsuits in the past. Serial litigators use the TCPA and DNC to enrich themselves by forcing settlements from telemarketers. Read more about How Telemarketers Get Tricked Into Phony TCPA Lawsuits.
- TCPA Reassigned ID℠. Data process to identify disconnected and re-assigned wireless numbers. Any business calling a consumer or business cell phone must have “permission” to call that number according to TCPA rules. Serial litigators often use regulations for re-assigned numbers to file lawsuits for compliance violations.
Predatory prosecutors and professional consumer litigants are growing in numbers. They have been emboldened by years of favorable court decisions and large settlements which have made the TCPA a legal excuse to extort money from businesses for unintentional mistakes
Applying the five solutions recommended here can save your business the headaches that come from frivolous lawsuits of alleged regulatory violations.