Success Story, Do Not Call (DNC) Registry
CSI Impact: In October 2007, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) awarded the second contract for the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry contact automation to a prime contractor that immediately brought on Contact Solutions to manage the IVR services portion of the contract for them. After less than two months of operations, CSI was able to find ways to improve the process, which could ultimately result in thousands of dollars saved.
Summary
The DNC application is completely automated with no live agent support. Callers can register, verify, or delete their telephone number from the DNC Registry, which means they will not be subsequently contacted by telemarketers. Callers may also use the automated system to file a complaint against a telemarketer who calls them after their number has been registered for 31 days. The prime contractor hosts a website where residential households can also register, verify or file a complaint. The IVR is the only place a number can be deleted from the registry. Risks to telemarketers that abuse the DNC registry and make solicitations to callers that opted out can be severe. Some telemarketers that have called DNC registered numbers have been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The application is continuously available and takes calls during all hours of the day and night. The busiest time is Monday-Thursday between 10 AM and noon. The application handles 200,000 calls a week on a regular basis, however the number of calls can spike if news is reported in the media about the registry or related telemarketing abuses. This touchtone application is in both English and Spanish. Interestingly, the same person recorded the English and Spanish versions of the recording, which is uncommon. There is also an English speech version of the application for callers who do not have touchtone service as well as a separate TTY version of the application.
CSI has identified several improvements to the service based on analysis of caller trends. Since the FTC contract with the prime contractor has a financial ceiling, it was in everyone’s best interest to keep the system running as efficiently as possible to reduce costs. CSI has worked closely with the prime contractor and the FTC to make the call as short as possible without compromising the requirements or impacting customer satisfaction. CSI has worked closely with the prime contractor for the program as well as the FTC to ensure the highest level of caller service in the shortest amount of time.
The application is often regarded as the busiest IVR application currently in use. Now in its sixth year of operation (CSI took over the IVR application at the beginning of year 6), it has frequently processed tens of thousands of transactions per hour. For the interactive voice response portion of the system, CSI was able to show the FTC that its highly scalable infrastructure could easily scale to the upper limits required by this registry. |
