Guidelines for compliance with US federal regulations when conducting telephone survey research
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) is the primary law in the United States governing the conduct of telephone solicitations (telemarketing). The TCPA restricts the use of automatic dialing systems, artificial or prerecorded voice messages, SMS text messages received by cell phones, and the use of fax machines to send unsolicited advertisements. It also specifies several technical requirements for fax machines, autodialers, and voice messaging systems; principally with provisions requiring identification and contact information of the entity using the device to be contained in the message.
The general benefit of the TCPA for researchers is that it definitively differentiates telemarketing and advertising from research calls. Survey research calls by definition, rules, language, and intent are not included in the laws that apply to telemarketing. Legitimate survey research calls are not included (rather than exempted) from the TCPA provisions that specifically address telephone solicitations (such as Do Not Call lists).
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Dialing cellular telephone numbers
The TCPA prohibits the use of autodialers for dialing cellular telephone numbers. This prohibition applies to all unsolicited calls, including those made for research purposes. By definition, autodialers include all automatic dialing systems, including speed dialers and predictive dialers. It is recommended that you treat any telephone number dialed automatically as an autodialed call.
With the advent of portability between wireless and landline telephone numbers, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has consistently stated that database solutions, to ensure compliance with the autodialer regulation, are the responsibility of industry. Consequently, databases that identify cellular phone numbers have been established by the telecommunications industry and within specific service industries (such as sampling agencies for research companies). NeuStar currently serves the telecommunications industry as administrator of the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC). As cellular phone numbers continue to serve as primary residential phone numbers, it is of utmost importance that autodialing usage, in regards to cellular phone numbers, is monitored in accordance with the TCPA rules and regulations.
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CASRO guidelines
The Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) has established guidelines for business practices and survey research quality, as well as for various research disciplines. The following CASRO guidelines are applicable when dialing cellular phone numbers.
▪Only use manual dialing to call cellular phone numbers.
▪Do not use a predictive dialer or an autodialer to dial cellular phone numbers.
▪Do not assume that “human” proximity to, or intervention in, the use of an autodialed call to a cellular phone number provides exemption from TCPA regulations.
▪Increasing portability between landline numbers and cellular phone numbers requires regular database updates in order to identify newly converted cellular phone numbers. It is recommended that you regularly monitor databases to determine which landline phone numbers are converted to cellular phone numbers.
CASRO resources and publications, as well as a list of the members, are available on the CASRO website:
Example
Federal regulations prohibit the use of autodialers for dialing cellular phone numbers. In order to comply with the regulations, an additional column (IsCellPhone for example) can be added to the Sample Table. The new column contains the values True/False, to denote which sample records are cellular phone numbers. The Sample Management Script will then need to be modified such that if IsCellPhone = True, then the number should be manually dialed, rather than autodialed by the system.
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