Contact Center Quality Management Featured Article

What is it about sports and call centers? It’s a comparison that Jennifer Waite -- Product Marketing Manager at cloud call center leader inContact – examined closely in a recent blog post. Her thoughts on the matter are worth sharing.

“Every football team has its own playbook, filled with options depending on the situation on the field, [and] different contact centers have different operating procedures depending on particular outbound campaigns,” she wrote. “And just as NFL rules of engagement make proper execution a necessity, so do complex FTC (News - Alert) and FCC regulations – including TSR, DNC and TCPA – make proper contact center execution critical.”

Waite goes on to note that different contact center risk tolerance profiles also call for different play calls. For example, “each company, as advised by their legal team, is going to interpret outbound dialing legislation differently,” she says. “The spectrum may run from liberal guidelines to specific and locked-down procedures for outbound calls.”

Taking the metaphor a step further, Waite notes that the ability (and willingness) to be ‘flexible’ is huge, citing her own company’s adaptability.

“inContact’s outbound dialing solution allows for custom time-zone bounding, so contact centers can optimize performance by calling during narrow time frames that are still within regulatory guidelines,” Waite observes. “And, list filtering ‘filters out’ certain states that, for example, have been hit by a storm and need to keep lines open for emergency purposes. Also, states that require licensed agents for a particular campaign can also be automatically filtered if necessary. Specific compliance guidelines can also be applied to campaigns that have different regulatory requirements, such as collections and proactive outreach,” she summarized.

Compliance management can be a complex challenge for any contact center, but just like the rules in major league sports, such compliance is a necessity. By being aware and being proactive, contact centers can not only stay ‘clean’, but also stay ahead of the game.