BPA requires recording of teleservices calls beginning January 2008

By Glenn Hansen, President and CEO, BPA Worldwide

I look forward to receiving your comments.  To send one, click on COMMENTS at the end of this blog.  I will review all comments before posting.  If you wish to remain anonymous in the posting, please so indicate in your comment, but of course, this blog will be more robust if we all identify ourselves.

I have created this blog to foster an open dialog on the matter of recording solicitations by telephone of requests to receive magazines.  I have added information below posted on our web site to start the discussion.  Please write back and present your issues and questions so that we may make sure all points of view are heard and considered.

Prospectively, I envision that BPA will use blogs for dialog on circulation audit rules we are considering.  I would also like your point of view on this.

Pardon the length of this introductory BLOG, but I thought all the information necessary to start a fully informed discussion.

On Wednesday September 13th, I presented to the American Business Media Circulation Committee on this subject.  That presentation will be added to and then presented as a free webinar.

Here now is the text to set this up:

At its meeting in December 2005, BPA Worldwide’s Board of Directors passed a rule that will make recording for outbound business publication circulation telemarketing efforts mandatory as of January 1, 2008.

The Board vote was the culmination of extensive discussion of all potential benefits and “downsides” among all of BPA’s worldwide committees and advisory boards comprising media owner, advertiser and advertising agency representatives, as well as the Telemarketing Managers’ Advisory Committee.

Several critical realities drove the ultimate decision:

Fact: B-to-B publications are more reliant than ever on telemarketing as a circulation source. Indeed, telemarketing has eclipsed written sources, to become the number-one source of B-to-B publication personal direct request subscriptions. According to the latest American Business Media Circulation Committee analysis of Paragraph 3B circulation statement data, for 2004, telemarketing accounted for 26.9% of total circulation across audited publications, versus written sources’ 24.6%.

Fact: Advertisers and media buyers are more focused than ever on accountability and demonstrating hard return on investment for their advertising dollars.

Fact: Over the years, the advertising community has not been receptive to publisher proposals to allow telemarketed subscriptions to be incorporated with “written direct request” for purposes of reporting on the circulation statement. Thus far, advertisers/media buyers have continued to affirm that they want the disclosure assurance of having telemarketing broken out as a separate source. However, key advertiser and media buyer executives on BPA’s Board and advisory committees have indicated that universal outbound recording will represent an important step in providing the quality control assurance that they would require as a prerequisite to approving a revised reporting format in which written, telemarketing and, potentially, Internet/email are consolidated.

Fact: Alarming increases in identity theft and concern about potential misuse of personal information are creating growing resistance to requests for such information, including the “Personal Identifier,” or “PI” request that must be asked, in the absence of recording, to provide auditors with a method of verifying requests. (Under BPA rules already in effect, the PI question need not be asked if a call is recorded.)

Result: The media owner, advertiser and agency executives on the BPA Board concurred that, taken together, these facts point to the need for action that will safeguard and enhance the viability and status of the telemarketing source for the years ahead, and that outbound recording represents the most effective and efficient means to this end.

I believe the growing importance of telemarketing as a source is precisely the reason that media owners and media buyers on BPA’s Board ultimately voted to take the necessary steps to ensure that the value of the circulation generated by telemarketing is beyond question, as far as advertisers and media buyers are concerned. Recognizing advertisers’ greatly heightened emphasis on accountability, these executives—as well as the leading telemarketers who comprise BPA’s Teleservices Advisory Committee—determined that it is in the best interests of the industry to be able to demonstrate beyond any doubt that telemarketing is a source that deserves to stand head-to-head with written and Internet sources.

Concerns about potential increases in telemarketing costs continue to be a major point of discussion. Media owners are more focused than ever on controlling and reducing operational costs wherever possible, and publishers’ ROI is always a critical component in shaping BPA policies. 

I do keep in mind that BPA is, after all, an industry service organization that is governed by its members and their respective needs.

But I also believe that media owners understand the need to safeguard their interests for the longer term—including their ability to compete effectively for advertising dollars in an increasingly challenging marketplace. This is why a number of the leading B-to-B media companies have for some time voluntarily made recording capability an internal, corporate prerequisite for using any telemarketing vendor.

After reviewing the facts, most media owners supported recording not only because of the accountability factor, but because there is no basis for assuming that costs will rise as a result of recording, when all is said and done.

Looking at the full picture, I believe that the advantages that come with recording—including the ability to maximize the yield and efficiency of calls, as well as reduce some auditing cost factors—will over time counterbalance, and outweigh, any short-term additional costs.

Specifically, outbound recording enables the following operational advantages:

• Gathering of multiple personal requests—either directly from recipients or from recipients’ assistants—for the same publication in a single call. This is true today: Existing BPA rules allow such multiple requests, as long as the calls are recorded.
• Foregoing the necessity to ask existing and prospective subscribers the “Personal Identifier” question. Importantly, many leading telemarketers who already record calls report that, today, asking the PI question is more likely to depress response (i.e., cause business professionals to end a call, or “drop off”) than disclosing that the call is being recorded. These telemarketers point out that, whereas personal questions are viewed with increasing suspicion, people are increasingly accustomed to being informed that a call is being recorded for customer service or other reasons. Again, the BPA rules already in effect allow those who record to forego the PI question.
• Decreased auditing confirmations, resulting in lower costs for this component of the circulation audit. In most cases, recording enables BPA to significantly reduce the number of calls made to subscribers by BPA staff for the purpose of verifying a subscription’s requested status. The number of calls required for statistical verification are directly reflected in an individual publisher’s cost per audit.
• Significantly enhanced potential for gaining the advertising community’s approval for reporting telemarketing, along with written and Internet/email, in a consolidated format. Again, the enhanced quality control assurance made possible by universal outbound recording is a critical step in this direction, in the minds of many in the B-to-B advertising/media buying community.

Additional important facts about outbound recording and the steps being taken to ensure that the industry can comply as seamlessly and cost-effectively as possible:

• Ample time has been provided for compliance. We have built in two years to enable member publishers to work with their telemarketers or prepare their in-house telemarketing operations.
• Recording software and equipment technology continues to become cheaper and faster. Telemarketers and publishers who record confirm that this factor has been an important factor in enabling them to implement recording.
• The rules will appropriately reflect practical considerations. For example, a reasonable reporting tolerance level will be incorporated for subscribers who refuse to be recorded, and it has been established that mandatory recording will not apply to subscription requests/requalifications garnered through inbound, subscriber-initiated calls.
• We are actively engaged in working with publishers and vendors to ensure that they have reasonable, cost-efficient means of complying with outbound recording. Based on research by BPA’s Teleservices Advisory Committee and other advisory committees, BPA is developing a detailed, practical guide to all specifics associated with outbound recording, including compliance with state and international recording disclosure requirements; information on available, cost-efficient recording technology; and test-based recommendations for minimizing costs and maximizing response. This guide will be distributed to all BPA members in the B-to-B arena, including media owners and associate members (telemarketers, fulfillment bureaus, etc.). It will also be made available to the industry in general via posting on BPA’s Web site, bpaww.com.
• BPA will support outbound recording with a variety of member education, outreach, and customer service initiatives. BPA is committed to providing all members with the educational and customer support services they will need to implement recording. In addition to BPA’s Guide to Outbound Telemarketing Recording, BPA will offer free Webinars and live educational programs. Members will be apprised on an ongoing basis of all recording rules/policy developments, and offered insights/advice from media owners and telemarketers regarding specific steps that can be taken to minimize costs and maximize results/efficiencies.

Click here to see the actual rule amendments in their entirety.  Rule amendments

Click on COMMENTS below to submit an opinion.  All opinions will be reviewed before posting.  If you wish to be anonymous in the posting, so indicate in your comments.

Comments

[Tim Fixmer]

Glenn,
I feel very strongly that lowering long-standing standards to accommodate non-compliers is not consistent with BPA’s history, nor in its best interests for the future. To those of us who have spent a career developing properties that compete based on those standards, this appears to be a slap in the face. It will, I believe, alienate some of your best members. I encourage you to scrap these planned changes and maintain both the additions and removals, as well as the 3.b breakout. Comparisons to consumer magazines and newspapers are not valid rationale for substantial reductions in standards.

Kindest Regards,
Tim

[Glenn Hansen]

Deborah, BPA has created two separate pieces to answer publishers' and telemarketers' questions about the outbound telemarketing recording initiative.

The first, "Telemarketing Guidelines," can be found in the Resource Quick Links section of the BPA website [ http://www.bpaww.com/resources/guide/telemarketing_guidelines.pdf ].

This guide provides publishers and telemarketing agencies with suggested operating guidelines for the acquisition and requalification of "Personal Direct Requests" through the use of recorded telephone interviews.

The second piece, "Telemarketing Recording," is also found within the Resource Quick Links section of our website [ http://www.bpaww.com/resources/guide/TeleRecFacPrep08.pdf ].

This fact sheet offers the reasoning behind the telemarketing recording initiative, as well as the operational advantages that publishers may gain from recording.

-Glenn

[DEBORAH ALLEN]

Glenn,
In your blog dated September 15, 2006 you stated that BPA was going to publish a Guide to Outbound Telemarketing recording, a detailed, practical guide to all specifics associated with outbound recording. Was this ever accomplished and if so where can I locate it? I have been searching for it without success.
deborah

[free website analyis]

When you do any kind of business by phone, it's always a good idea to record the calls.

[Len Meyers]

Are we in the black hole because of our company being a Mac house? The new device is PC only.
We would need to add a high speed DSL at $60/month, and 4 new computers. This is because you can't police dishonnest members. We have been telemarketing only to subscribers longer than any other member. Help...11 months to go.

[Nikunj Mittal]

Hi,

I am with a telemarketing company and I can tell you that recording DOES NOT result in any increase in cost whatsoever. If your vendor tells you that his cost has increased because of the requirement to record calls, he is just trying to make a quick buck.

Furthermore, it only increases the response rates rather than decreasing them. A very positive step by BPA - I just hope it would have been implemented sooner than Jan 2008 !

[Stefan Rörig]

With the start of mandatory recording of telemarketing calls on January 1st 2008 there is still enough time to check the legal situation (which might differ with us in Germany), but I am sure, in co-operation with BPA, we will find a satisfying solution.
However, as far as I understood the new regulations, all qualified subscriptions with PIQ that have been called before Dec 31st 2007 stay valid until the have to be requalified?

GLENN's response: Yes, all calls placed before 2008 in which the Personal Identifier Question (PIQ) was used are acceptable for 3 years from the date of the call. These calls do not need to be recorded.

[Richard Murphy (BPA)]

BPA purchased a USB phone recorder for $145. It hooks into the phone and the computer.

Upon receipt of the unit I was given an address to download the software for my PC.

The software has recording/saving/archiving/sorting/naming capabilities. We were up and running in minutes.

We called over 1000 people on our test, got through to over 500. No one rejected to being recorded, and in the words of the TSR on the job, "the recording process does not seem to make people act negatively." Other publishers are also testing and are getting similar results.

Here is the link to the unit BPA purchased... http://www.telephonemagic.com/call-recording-usb.htm

BPA IS NOT ENDORSING THIS PRODUCT, WE ARE ONLY INFORMING OF OUR EXPERIENCE.

[Rhonda]

Glenn,

Perhaps something that could factor in to the discussion would be a possible bridge between the two methods for telemarketing. Perhaps a company could choose to continue asking the PI and have additional costs at audit time. We have so few telemarketing names on our files because we use it as a last effort to keep the subscriber. We have not had very many that have refused to answer the PI once the requirement is explained so in our case, the PI is not an issue.

[Rhonda]

We have difficulty with this new ruling because of the cost associated with it for a small business. We are currently doing all of our telemarketing in-house (because of cost) and currently we don't have a way to record the conversation. We've looked at options and even tested with an outside telemarketing source, but it's so expensive! To maintain it in-house, which we prefer, we would have to invest over $30,000 to upgrade our entire company's phone system to allow recording of phone calls. Is there not a better way?

Glenn's comment: We have tested recording here at BPA for 500 calls using a digital recorder that cost approximately $150. Granted it is not a fancy system, but it works. We will be posting information on this shortly. We have not looked into system purchases such as the one you suggest. Will do so.

[Gail Stone]

Glenn,

This is a great idea, as Joan had stated. I have completed a few tests regarding the PI vs. recording the responses. One test increased response by 15% recording the responses. One test broke just about even, and neither made a impact on increasing or decreasing the responses. The third test demonstrated a slight increase in recorded responses.

On one recent call I received,I had a disagreement with a TSR in regard to this. I was told I was being recorded, to which I agreed and then I was asked the PI. Because of the recording, I stated I needn't answer the PI but the TSR insisted it was necessary. Needless to say, I discontinued my subscription.

[Roe Brown]

I think that recording the telemarketing outbound would benefit the publication in the long run. The possible approval from BPA to consolidate the written, and telemarketing would be a great step forward. The elimination of the personal identifier would also be beneficial since in today's world people are more cautious answering telemarketing questions.

[Joan Marcus]

Glenn

This is a great idea, I look forward to reading people's comments. I am sure there are quite a few misconceptions out there about recording calls and hopefully this open discussion will lead to clarity.

Joan