Why do companies still get into trouble for predictive dialling?

Michael McKinlay gives his opinion on why companies are still falling foul of the Ofcom regulations.

Do you remember the days when we were all continually up in arms about the invasion of our privacy by call centres, not only calling us without our agreement, but often hanging up or playing a sales message because there was no live agent to handle the call?

The Telephone Preference Service brought in by Ofcom in 1999 has certainly reduced the incidence of such calls, but, as the recent spat that Talk Talk and Homeserve have found themselves in with Ofcom shows, there is still considerable non-compliance with the dialling rules laid down by Ofcom four years later, in 2003.

Why is it that large companies get themselves into trouble in using predictive diallers to make outbound calls?   Especially when the rules are actually quite clear.  Let’s start by looking at how the rules evolved.

There is often a need for balance between government and other bodies concerned with consumer rights, on the one hand, and industry, whose job it is to make a profit, on the other. Sometimes the invisible hand of Adam Smith works and regulators can take a back seat, but not in the case of outbound call centres.  In the absence of legislation, the bad habits of any one call centre in pursuit of profits can often be easily hidden and the consequences not visited upon them.  What was surprising about the Ofcom legislation for outbound calls was that it took so long for the regulators to understand this and set some rules.

In a democratic environment, there is, of course, a natural expectation that when consumer concerns about any kind of economic activity reach a certain level,  government and industry will put their heads together and figure out what to do.  Obvious examples are pollution generated by motor vehicles and aircraft.  We have been in no mood to give up our use of such transport, so government and industry have worked together to substantially reduce pollution, especially that of noxious gases.  Once industry has been pushed to achieve, the results have been excellent.

So what, you may ask, has this got to do with outbound calls made by call centres?

Unlike other areas of economic activity, there was never any constructive and effective debate between government and industry as to how predictive diallers should be used in a way that was both fair to consumers and yet offered industry good performance.

Before the Ofcom rules on dialling came into force,  call centres in search of good performance would regularly wind their outbound diallers up to the point that they were making very large numbers of nuisance or silent calls.  In other words, you as a consumer answered the phone, but there was no one available to talk to you.  Sometimes more than half of all calls received were silent calls.

For a variety of reasons which go well beyond the scope of this article, when Ofcom decided to set a limit on silent calls, it decided on a figure of just 3% of all live calls.  Minuscule compared to what many call centres had been used to.

Ofcom, rightly, in your writer’s view, laid down a very tough law and said that this was how it was going to be.  The outbound vendors whose products had been producing such high levels of silent calls were noticeable for their silence.  They knew the game was up and not one of them said ‘3% is a  tough figure to work with.’

The harsh reality is that the technology making silent calls, predictive diallers, simply wasn’t designed to achieve consistent levels of good productivity at a 3% silent call level.  No one told Ofcom that, given that the US regulators had already ruled on a 3% maximum several years earlier.  Today the UK is still the only country in the world that stipulates such a control in respect of ALL outbound calls, and with just 1% of the world’s population and a much reduced volume of calls, post-Ofcom rules, the incentive for vendors  to improve dialler algorithms has just not been there.   Some vendors have tried, but the task of dialling productively at a 3% level is extraordinarily difficult, and not one that any vendor has dared to admit it can’t meet; a certain way to lose sales!

Rather, what vendors have done is to issue white papers, making it clear that their products can work in compliant mode. To be honest, these are almost totally meaningless, since all it means is that they dial less aggressively, and that’s not difficult to do!

So what have users of diallers made of all this?  Well, even today there is a strongly held belief among UK call centres that any dialler can consistently achieve good or even great  performance under compliance.  But this is just not the case.  This lack of understanding by users is one reason why operators like Talk Talk get themselves into trouble with Ofcom and then end up facing swingeing fines.

The question that needs to be asked at vendor selection isn’t really about compliance.  That’s easy.  The real question vendors should be asked to address is how much predictive gain their dialler can produce.  In other words, when dialling under compliance, how much extra talk time per hour does a predictive dialler enable, in comparison with simpler  forms of dialling, specifically with what is known in the industry as progressive dialling?

If users start asking the right questions and demanding better products, then we may begin to see an improvement in the quality of outbound dialling, as well-engineered diallers gradually become the standard rather than the exception.   And we can expect to see fewer fines and happier consumers, too.  But if the current state of ignorance about what diallers do remains, then progress will be limited and we can expect the fines to continue.

Some readers may wonder why any article on predictive dialling would not talk about answering machine detection (AMD)!  The simple answer is that users should follow the example of outsourcers such as LBM and turn it off.  They may just find that their bottom line gets better, as consumers, tired of being kept waiting, are put through to agents as soon as they answer the phone.

Michael McKinlay, CEO, Sytel Limited