teleblock plus - NICE inContact

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GRYPHON WHITE PAPER

TELEBLOCK PLUS Do-Not-Contact Compliance for High-Volume Contact Centers

GRYPHON WHITE PAPER ABSTRACT Contact centers are a key component in the outbound sales ecosystem. When marketing to businesses and individuals, marketing privacy and contact governance become an essential element to planning and ensuring legal and effective customer communications. The trend is clear: Do-Not-Contact laws are multiplying and getting tougher every year while consumers are becoming more visible and vocal about their brand loyalty. The stakes are even higher for companies utilizing contact centers to ensure compliance with marketing privacy and Do-Not-Call laws, as well as consumer preferences in a continuously changing marketplace. Whether using in-house call centers or third-party vendors calling on a company’s behalf, any solution for Do-Not-Call compliance suitable for these dialing environments must be able to preserve the high-volume nature of automated dialing equipment while maintaining its efficiency and consistency, which are the cornerstones of any well-run contact center.

LIABILITY FOR NONCOMPLIANCE WITH MARKETING REGULATIONS APPLIES TO BOTH CORPORATIONS AND THEIR OUTSOURCED VENDORS The popularity of Do-Not-Call laws and related marketing privacy regulations has created an environment of unprecedented regulatory complexity for outbound sales and marketing teams and has tied the hands of companies that depend on the telephone for customer acquisition. Contact centers, and the automated calling technology they employ, are integral to many companies’ sales and marketing operations and severely restricted by marketing privacy laws. In fact, automated dialing has become one of the most tightly regulated marketing practices used by contact centers. The FTC and the FCC have made it clear that corporations are liable for the noncompliance of all their outsourced marketing agents and vendors, including high-volume contact centers. The FTC’s suit against DirecTV illustrates how corporations can and will be fined for Do-Not-Call violations of their outsourced sales teams. DirecTV agreed to pay $5.3 million in fines for the Do-Not-Call violations of its third party marketing firms. The FTC alleged DirecTV “knew or consciously avoided knowing” that Do-Not-Call violations were occurring. Subsequent fines paid by DirecTV resulted in a combined $7.6 million in penalties for Do-Not-Call violations, the largest in US history.

GRYPHON WHITE PAPER FACT: SCRUBBING LISTS DOESN’T ENSURE COMPLIANCE The Do-Not-Call compliance process for many companies consists simply of scrubbing lead lists and then disseminating phone numbers to agents making outbound telemarketing calls. Companies that scrub their leads lists: • Cannot ensure compliance with business-specific Do-Not-Call lists, which can be updated at any time • Cannot ensure real-time compliance with call curfew, state holiday, and state of emergency solicitation bans • Cannot provide adequate record keeping or audits in case of a regulatory investigation

“List Scrubbing — a process that utilizes database merging and purging techniques to electronically remove Do-Not-Call numbers from a list of telephone numbers.” - Definition from the Professional Association for Customer Engagement (PACE)

• Cannot distribute updated scrubbed lists in real-time, a process which can take days, if not weeks • Cannot ensure agents call from the most recently certified file • Cannot ensure agents call only numbers that are certified Legislatures and industry self-regulatory organizations (SRO) are continuously introducing, enacting, and updating regulations — there are hundreds of pieces of Do-Not-Call legislation pending in the US alone. Scrubbing lists will neither account for these changes nor apply them in real time. Any sales and marketing organization that relies on list scrubbing alone risks liability with every dial.

A BETTER MOUSETRAP: BLOCKING CALLS IS FULLY COMPLIANT, RELIABLE, AND SEAMLESS Just as the fax machine gave way to email, list scrubbers are giving way to a far more sophisticated solution: real-time call blocking.

“Blocking — a feature added to a telephone line that performs a real-time query wherein the number being called is compared to numbers on state and federal DNC lists, and if the number appears on any such list, terminates the call prior to its delivery to the consumer.” - Definition from the Professional Association for Customer Engagement (PACE)

Gryphon Networks offers the only patented technology that physically blocks agents from calling numbers on international, federal, state, wireless, third-party, and business-specific Do-Not-Call lists at call initiation. Our blocking technology exists in the path of every call, certifying every dial in real-time, providing reliable record keeping of all calls made, and capturing rich data associated with those calls useful for audit purposes.

GRYPHON WHITE PAPER Gryphon’s TeleBlock Plus is a cloud-based platform that automatically accounts for the local time of the called party compared with the local time of the agent placing the call to control for variable call curfew, state holiday and state of emergency restrictions. TeleBlock Plus automatically identifies wireless numbers and incorporates dynamic rules for dialing in both manual and automated dialing environments, making compliance with the restrictive, complicated regulations governing wireless solicitations simple and foolproof. Gryphon’s blocking technology is the only solution backed by a guarantee of 100% indemnified compliance, making it the only option for businesses looking to contract out liability for marketing privacy regulations.

RECOVER VALUABLE LEADS List scrubbers are over suppressive because they merely apply Do-Not-Call lists without taking into account legal exemptions. Gryphon’s patented technology allows businesses to seamlessly apply legal exemptions, including established business relationships (EBR) and consumer consent, in real time with no additional requirements on the end user. TeleBlock Plus also allows EBR information to be managed uniquely by product or brand, campaign, and line of business. In addition, TeleBlock Plus automatically identifies every business telephone number dialed through the platform and routes them through a less restrictive rules engine. Furthermore, Gryphon’s sophisticated engine incorporates each company’s business rules, procedures, and proprietary business relationships into a contact governance profile that ensures the highest level of marketing effectiveness by minimizing Do-Not-Call blocks. With TeleBlock Plus, numbers on a company’s business-specific Do-Not-Call list — as well as EBRs and consumer consent exemptions — are all automatically expired according to varying federal and state laws, blocking an agent from calling a phone number the moment it is no longer legal to do so. Any changes made to EBR rules are immediately incorporated without client intervention. Disconnected numbers that have been reassigned and changed ownership are also automatically removed. The result is a higher conversion rate and better conversations.

HOW TELEBLOCK PLUS WORKS TeleBlock Plus is a cloud-based solution that operates within the network infrastructure of participating telephone carriers via both traditional wire line as well as SIP and VoIP technologies. It’s the only product that seamlessly integrates with predictive dialers and other automated dialing systems in order to physically block agents from dialing numbers they are legally prohibited from calling.

GRYPHON WHITE PAPER Once the system is enabled, all originating calls on provisioned telephone lines are automatically screened against your organization’s proprietary Do-Not-Call database in the telephone carrier network in a few milliseconds. If a dialed number is not legally callable due to a registration on a Do-Not-Call list or any other telemarketing prohibition, then the call is blocked in real-time and the agent cannot place the telephone call to the consumer.

No Hardware, No Problem TeleBlock Plus is cloud-based and therefore requires no investment in hardware, software, IT administration, or CAPEX. The platform is always available, requires no adjustments to your telecommunications infrastructure and agents experience no latency or changes to existing sales processes.

If the number is OK to call, then the call is processed accordingly with real-time captured analytics of every call that is placed. Companies can control call frequency based on location, product or brand, campaign, and line of business. The Gryphon team manages all regulatory updates to federal, state, wireless, and industry specific Do-Not-Call lists according to mandated update intervals. Clients’ centers simply dial and the Gryphon engine does the rest.

GRYPHON WHITE PAPER CONCLUSION The courts and history have shown that phone number scrubbing alone is not an effective way to ensure regulatory compliance for marketing privacy laws. In fact, list scrubbing will block between 20%–60% more numbers than are legally required due to inconsistencies in lists, porting and its inability to properly account for established business relationships. TeleBlock Plus is the only Do-Not-Call compliance solution that physically blocks agents from calling illegal telephone numbers. It’s also the only solution to automatically apply every legal exemption to Do-Not-Call laws and to automatically incorporate each business’ unique relationships, procedures, and rules. Research has shown that this dynamic approach results in higher conversion rates and better conversations with customers and prospects. Gryphon’s unique, in-network delivery model requires no investment in hardware infrastructure, storage, or on-going maintenance costs. This cloud-based software exists in the path of every call every agent makes, regardless of where they are located or what device they use to make the call. Because of this method, businesses can access real-time records of all call activity on every sales or marketing call for audit, quality or review purposes. TeleBlock Plus is the world’s leading automated Do-Not-Call compliance tool for centralized and distributed sales teams. It’s the only solution backed by a guarantee of 100% indemnified compliance.

ABOUT GRYPHON Companies with dispersed sales teams depend on Gryphon Networks to optimize sales performance and eliminate regulatory risk. Gryphon’s cloud-based technology automatically collects and analyzes call data from any device to transform sales activity into actionable sales intelligence. Established in 1998 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Gryphon counts the world’s top brokerage and financial services firms among a host of 600+ satisfied clients. Call Gryphon today to learn how you can manage your team with accurate, on-demand call data: ► 1 866.366.6822 Or visit us at www.gryphonnetworks.com.