| CIS: What is InfoCision’s specialty and mission statement?
Taylor: InfoCision’s mission has always been to be the highest quality teleservices provider in the world. The best evidence of our success is that InfoCision is the only teleservices provider to win an MVP Quality Award all 10 years of the program’s existence, and we have won the Gold Medal the last six consecutive years. We are not a telemarketing service bureau with sales reps who merely read a script, but a full-service marketing consulting firm that specializes in providing a full spectrum of teleservices products to the specific industries that we specialize in. Instead of employing “TSRs” (telemarketing sales reps), we recruit, train and nurture “Communicators” who specialize in and are motivated to become experts in these specific industries and the customers they serve. “Commitment to Excellence” underscores our total and uncompromising commitment to quality and integrity. “Whatever It Takes” reflects our people’s willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty (or job description), providing our clients with the highest quality teleservices in the industry.
CIS: What makes InfoCision’s services unique and how can a client benefit from using them?
Taylor: InfoCision is unique in the quality of our people, our call center environment and our quality assurance procedures. Our extra investments in quality translate into a higher return on investment for our clients. We work with clients in the industries we specialize in only, making us experts in their businesses. This expertise allows our Communicators to handle more complex programs, and outperform our competition.
Also, we are one of the very few call centers with truly dynamic inbound/outbound call blending capabilities. When inbound productivity dips for even an instant, outbound calls are automatically interspersed to keep our Communicators optimally productive at all times. This is unique in our industry.
CIS: What is the most pressing issue facing our industry today, and how can the industry alleviate such problems?
Taylor: The most pressing issue, without a doubt, is excessive governmental regulation. When the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced plans to create a national do-not-call (DNC) registry, it immediately brought to mind three major problems.
First, the proposed $11,000 fine per (call) violation is ridiculous. They propose an alleged “safe harbor” provision, which is of course subject to the FTC’s interpretation. This could bankrupt a legitimate company that merely makes an (ultimately inevitable) mistake. Not only will we be forced to comply with national FTC restrictions, but we also must register in 43 different states, and simultaneously comply with 27 different individual statewide regulations and restrictions. Mistakes are inevitable, and they could literally bankrupt us.
Second, the sign-up procedure must ensure the integrity of the DNC list. The consumer should pay some nominal amount (e.g., $1.00 per year) to register, so they scrutinize and understand what they are signing up for. A prominent disclaimer should explain to consumers exactly what they are signing up for. Consumers should know, for example, that it will now be illegal for Ford to call them 18 months after they bought a car to offer them an extended warranty package, etc., etc.
Finally, a daily abandon rate maximum of 3 percent for each individual client program is unreasonable. We comply with the Direct Marketing Association guideline of a 5 percent overall daily abandon rate. When we dropped from 7 percent to the 5 percent guideline, it cost us 17 percent in decreased productivity. If we have to meet the 3 percent threshold, we might as well blow up our $10 million investment in workstations and revert to manual dialing.
CIS: What do you see as being the future of the teleservices outsourcing industry?
Taylor: The teleservices outsourcing industry is rapidly being forced to migrate to inbound. With more and more onerous regulations coming from various states and Washington, D.C., companies will increasingly be forced to move away from the outbound side of the business. This is unfortunate, in that most of the consumers InfoCision calls have a very strong relationship with our clients and appreciate hearing from us. After all, if we were calling people who did not want to hear from us, our programs would not be economically viable. It seems that the politicians and regulators are ignoring the significant benefits we provide through job creation, economic growth, and the goods and services we cost effectively market for our clients.
Long term, outbound providers will need to shift to more inbound applications, as continued regulations eliminate outbound opportunities. More than $120 million of our business, and well over 2,000 jobs, are at risk to disappear overnight if the FTC regulations are implemented as currently proposed. We will have no chance to build our inbound business fast enough to compensate for our outbound losses if we cannot successfully lobby for more reasonable restrictions.
I believe that along with a shift from outbound to inbound business, e-commerce and Internet communications will continue to grow. These services will likewise be more focused on inbound customer care applications. Short term, outbound e-commerce contacts, as well as fax and e-mail communications, will have real growth opportunity because they are so inexpensive. But just as is happening to outbound telemarketing today, I believe that increased regulations will limit their long-term growth potential.
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