What’s Your Hang-Up?

Spurred on by increasing consumer complaints about hang-up calls, the Direct Marketing Association is expected to release guidelines early next year covering the use of predictive dialers in call centers.

Predictive dialers enable telemarketers to pace calls and to filter out unanswered calls. The software uses algorithms to determine how often a new number should be dialed. The calculations take into account such factors as the average length of a sales call, the number of telephone service representatives working and the number of potential consumers for the campaign. Users can adjust the technology to make it more or less aggressive.

Problems occur if agents stay on a call for a shorter or longer time than the average period. If shorter, they sit idle until the next call is dialed. If longer, a new call is made but no agent is available to handle it. Either the consumer’s phone rings a few times and then stops or the consumer answers the phone but no agent is there. These are usually called “abandons,” though people disagree about exactly how to define that term (some include calls to answering machines, others don’t), and that issue is part of the guideline discussions.

“We’ve gotten complaints about consumers who go to the phone and there’s no one at the other end,” says Marsha Goldberger, the DMA’s director of ethics and consumer affairs. “That confuses people. They don’t understand that it’s a predictive dialer. They think it might be someone stalking them. We’d like to accommodate a way for the manufacturers and users to have less of the hang-up calls. It’s in the telemarketers’ interest to not confuse, alarm or annoy people, especially older people who get to the phone after several rings and then there’s no one there. The whole idea is to stress ethical usage and lower the number of consumer complaints.”

Goldberger says the DMA’s ad hoc task force on the topic-which has been exploring the issue since April-hopes to get the proposal to the board of directors by next month. The task force has consulted manufacturers and users, though the DMA declines to say which ones.

The DMA’s Teleservices Council and its Ethics Policy Committee, which recommends guidelines to the board of directors, have both been involved. And the issue is serious enough that DMA president/CEO H. Robert Wientzen has been sitting in on the task force’s deliberations.

What industry standard the DMA will come up with is unclear; the group won’t release the draft that is circulating. The guidelines will probably determine an appropriate percentage of abandons per total calls, limit the number of rings before the dialer hangs up and decide whether telemarketers’ identities should be revealed through automatic number identification so the consumer at least knows whom the abandoned call came from.

At the same time, the American Teleservices Association, formerly the American Telemarketing Association, is developing similar standards. ATA president Gene Gray said the group will probably establish guidelines at its board meeting in January. “It’s something that as a responsible practitioner in the marketplace you’re just going to have to acclimate yourself to,” he says of the proposals. Gray is also vice president of client management at service bureau giant Apac Teleservices Inc., Deerfield, IL.

Complaints about such dead calls appear to be contributing to the growth of the DMA’s Telephone Preference Service, which allows consumers to opt out of receiving calls from telemarketers. As of October, there were 2.22 million names on the “do not call” list, up from 1.46 million last year and 993,317 in late 1996. The list has grown 52.3% over the past year. In comparison, this year the Mail Preference Service has grown by only 10%.

Bell Atlantic spokesman John Bonomo says about half of the 22,000 calls fielded each month by the telephone company’s Annoyance Call Bureau covering New York and New England are prompted by telemarketing hang-ups. “So it’s a good assumption that half of those 22,000 calls are because of predictive dialers,” he says. “We counsel them that more than likely it’s these things called predictive dialers so at least they become more aware of what this system is.”

In using predictive dialing technology, marketers strike a balance between agent productivity and consumer annoyance. Many marketers shoot for 70% agent productivity, which means reps are on the phone for 42 minutes out of every hour.

Pat Faley, the DMA’s vice president in charge of consumer affairs, notes that abandon rates can be anywhere from 1% up into the teens, though several DMA members say theirs was at 2%, which is acceptable to them.

“We have to have some restrictions on the software allowing for abandonment rates for outgoing phone calls to consumers,” says telemarketing consultant Mary Ann Falzone, president of Falzone & Associates, Chalfont, PA. “It can’t simply be that manufacturers will allow the technology to be used in any way and each client uses it differently. Depending on the situation, zero to 2% should be the maximum allowable range of abandoned calls, and that should be configured into the software. My recommendation? Probably 1% is a good range.”

Says anti-telemarketing activist Robert Bulmash, of Private Citizen, Naperville, IL: “If they go anything over zero it’s wrong. There’s no reason people should be called in their home and hung up on.”

Predictive dialer maker Davox Corp., Westford, MA, has been assisting the DMA on the guidelines. “It’s in our best interest to promote the proper use of the equipment,” says chief technical officer James Mitchell. “We call it pacing. One of the bragging points for the manufacturers is, ‘How good is your pacing algorithm?'”

According to Mitchell, the DMA has agreed to Davox’s suggestion to use a wider definition of “abandon.”

“To us an annoying call is one that’s ringing,” he says. “To others it’s only when the consumer picks up the phone and hears silence,” which doesn’t include when the phone stops after a few rings.

Mitchell adds that smart marketers will make sure they don’t hang up on a consumer more than once; if they reach the consumer after a few hang-ups, he or she will know who was responsible-and that’s not good customer relations.