DO-NOT-CALL LIST Telemarketers: Give us a ring, won't you?

Telemarketers are using innovative techniques to keep selling.
WASHINGTON POST
Now that telemarketers can't call you anymore, will they be able to persuade you to call them instead?
Facing a future in which more than 50 million home phones on a national do-not-call list are off-limits, some telemarketers are hoping consumers will do just that.
Tampa, Fla.-based Sykes Enterprises Inc., one of the largest calling companies, will try to entice people into calling it by working with direct mail and spam purveyors to bombard consumers with advertising that dangles free vacations and discount DVDs at the other end of a toll-free line, officials said.
"You may see a burst of spam. You may see a burst of direct mail," said William Sokol, Sykes' senior director for strategy and marketing.
Not all companies have given up dialing, however. Some are moving aggressively to take advantage of various exemptions in the law, including those that allow calls for surveys or on behalf of charities and political groups.
InQ, a small California company, may be testing the limits of a loophole that permits calls to existing customers. It is calling customers of online retailers it partners with, and offering products from another company, chief executive Steve Nober said. Federal regulators, however, said they question whether the technique meets the requirements of the exemption.
The reason for the new strategies is simple: Telemarketing is big business. Last year, telemarketers made upwards of 70 million calls a day and sold more than $100 billion worth of goods and services to consumers, plus $114 billion to businesses, according to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), a trade group.
Two million people are employed directly in the industry, DMA officials said. They predict the do-not-call restrictions will kill off anywhere from a quarter to half of the jobs and revenue in outbound telemarketing.
Adapting
Rich Tehrani, editor of Customer Interaction Solutions, a trade magazine, said many firms that once specialized in telemarketing are adapting to the new reality by turning their call centers around to focus on inbound calls.
Tehrani said he has been "shocked" recently to see companies that once boasted of the millions of telemarketing calls they made now claiming they don't make any.
"You'd think there is no problem at all because no one is making any phone calls," he said.
But of course someone is still calling. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported last week that consumers who registered for the do-not-call list have filed more than 15,000 complaints about calls they continued to receive.
InQ's idea is to make further sales to customers who buy products at online retailers such as Publishers Clearing House. The customers are greeted after checkout by a live InQ operator, who thanks them for the purchase through a chat box that appears to be part of the retailer's site. The operator then offers to sell customers a product from a different company, such as discounted movie tickets for $7.99 per month, or financial fraud protection for $9.99 a month.
Customers who don't respond to the online operator can expect a call within 48 hours from InQ telemarketers who offer customer service on behalf of the online retailer, and then make their pitch. The company supplying the new product, the online retailer and InQ share the revenue.
"It's a chance for them to increase sales dramatically and not have to worry about the do-not-call list," said InQ chief executive Nober. He said his company has about $10 million in annual revenue and employs several dozen operators.
"The FTC has said that the do-not-call provisions do not apply to 'up-sells.' That is the basis of the InQ program," InQ counsel Linda Goldstein said. The calls, she said, have a customer-service component on behalf of the online retailer, with operators only making the solicitation at the end.
Passing muster
Officials at the FTC and the Federal Communications Commission, which will enforce the registry restrictions, say they aren't sure the InQ technique will pass muster. "The existing business relationship runs between the seller of a good or service and its customers, and doesn't necessarily extend to affiliates and subsidiaries," said Katie Harrington-McBride, an FTC staff attorney.
When customers do call, operators are standing by to capitalize. Across the industry, operators at customer service centers are being trained to sell every chance they get, no matter the reason for the call.
"Any time you call in to ask about your ... bill, they're going to start giving you up-sell and cross-sell offers," said Jeff Nevins, an analyst with First Analysis. "Since they've got you on the phone, they might as well try to sell you something."