A digital grip to face the legal fence to commercial calls

While the greatest beneficiary of the regulations is the consumer because of the impact of the user experience, the challenge is to find a balance between consumer protection and the need for companies to communicate with their audience. The most affected sectors will be those with a high dependence on telephone contact, says Patricia Mendoza Balladares, professor of the Digital Law Master at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR), although “all professionals really will be affected if they want to make commercial calls.” Sectors such as energy, telecommunications, ‘Call Center’ and Telemarketing centers, as well as banking, insurance or health clinics must “change and reinforce their digital strategy in other channels such as email segmented marketing, webchat or whatsapp with prior authorization and advertising in social networks with direct collection, as they have been doing.”

Severe blow

From the CEX Association (Association of Client Experience Companies) they define the regulations as “disproportionate and with negative consequences” because the new restrictions imposed “not only limit contact calls with customers, but also block telephone traffic and essential messages for identity verification, collect management and fraud prevention.” The main companies that demand Contact Center services, they explain, are large companies of strategic sectors in Spain and for them, telephone attention remains an essential channel to communicate with its customers and consumers. «Limiting this medium will not only make its daily operation difficult, but also could deteriorate the client experience and the relationship with the consumer».

However, both Díaz and Alfred Nesweda, CEO of Enreach, express the double purpose of the norm. On the one hand, achieve the protection of the consumer of intrusive and generic messages without their consent and, on the other, to move away the Push Marketing strategies to get closer to pull marketing, based on customization and the delivery of relevant content through all telecommunications channels.

Services with AI

Of course, technology plays a key role in this transition, Mendoza Balladares continues. Advanced tools for verified identification of call emitters help avoid blockages and ensure that communications are legitimate. In addition, “data analysis is used to improve customer segmentation, ensuring that calls are addressed only to those who are more likely to be interested.” The AI ​​also helps transcribe, classify and evaluate the level of service of all chats and calls, point from Enreach. “If we also connect this technology to Business Intelligence (BI) tools, such as Powerbi, we can extract consultation patterns, detect recurrent incidents and measure in real time the quality of the service provided.”

For a long time, there have been many companies that have already taken measures to meet the regulations without losing effectiveness such as the transition to fixed numbering and 900/800 to continue making calls, the use of CRM (Customer Relationship management or relationship management with intelligent customers) to customize the interactions and avoid unnecessary contacts, automating other channels to streamline communication with interested clients or with interested clients In consent to ensure that users want to receive the call. This does not mean that, telemarketing and customer service companies feel some concern, since it introduces significant changes in their daily operation, as well as the responsibility of investing in advanced technology to detect and block, with the least possible margin of error, the calls and SMS that breach the ministerial order.

Advantages

The positive side of all this change, indicates Alfred Nesweda, is that many of the commercial calls not requested from mobile numbering, when marked as spam, were forced to constantly register new numbers to continue operating. With the implementation of numbering 800 or 900, this problem disappears, and now they can manage their outgoing call campaigns with greater stability and without risk of being blocked by users. This migration also allows access to advanced functionalities that were not available in mobile lines, such as waiting lines management with custom messages and the implementation of ‘callback’ (automatic releasing) to reduce waiting times. And finally, the impulse in the diversification of contact channels. «If we analyze the flow of information prior to a purchase or the resolution of an incidence, the last channel that customers resort is the phone. Email, web pages and social networks are usually the first consultation points, so it is essential to be present in these channels to capture and guide users from there with personalized content ».

In addition, as a strategy in all sectors, the privacy culture should be reinforced, to be able to respond properly about the origin of the data and if there is the consent of the call, as well as the possibility of revocation of the consent or suppression of the contact list. This would generate confidence in customers, strengthening the long -term relationship and minimizing legal and reputational risks.