UNICOM Systems, Inc. Statement of Compliance: Response to MRS regulations for use of predictive dialers
 
UNICOM Systems, Inc. Statement of Compliance: Response to MRS regulations for use of predictive dialers
Background
On 1 March 2006, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) issued a new Statement of policy on the persistent misuse of an electronic communications network or electronic communications service. This statement is designed, in part, to address the problem of silent calls. To help its members abide by this new statement, MRS has released Regulations1 on the Use of Predictive Dialers.
This UNICOM Systems, Inc. Statement of Compliance document serves to list each of the regulations and provide specific details with regard to the technology or process in question, and the compliance status for each item.
Definitions
1 For the purposes of these Regulations, predictive dialer shall mean any equipment capable of dialling a telephone number prior to a live operator being available to exclusively handle the call.
2 For the purposes of these Regulations, a live call is a call answered by a live individual.
3 For the purposes of these Regulations, a silent call or abandoned call is any live call, which is not connected to a “live” operator within 2 seconds of the call being answered.
4 For the purposes of these Regulations, a live operator is one where a person is present to talk with an individual who answers a call and does not include pre-recorded voice messages.
The Information given and statements made herein are provided and made in good faith and are, so far as UNICOM Systems, Inc. aware, accurate as at 06 August 2007 and are based on UNICOM Systems, Inc.’s interpretation of the Regulations. In consideration of UNICOM Systems, Inc. providing this information any UNICOM Systems, Inc. person or organization to whom it is provided agrees that nothing herein is to be regarded as a warranty or representation and that UNICOM Systems, Inc. shall have no liability to any such person or organization or to any other person or organization for any liability incurred by any of them (to Ofcom or any other person) which may be incurred by any of them as a result of a breach of the Regulations and or their reliance on the information herein. Any party which is regulated by any Ofcom Regulations remains solely responsible for observance of such Regulations from time to time and UNICOM Systems, Inc. makes no guarantees that use of its software or other products will now or hereafter enable such compliance. UNICOM Systems, Inc. has no responsibility to update this document or the information provided herein if or when any Ofcom Regulations change or the functionality of software or other products change or are updated even if a change in either would render information herein inaccurate or out of date.
Regulations
OFCOM STATEMENT OF POLICY ON THE PERSISTENT MISUSE OF AN ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK OR SERVICE – MARCH 2006 (ITEM 6.16)
MRS REGULATIONS FOR USE OF PREDICTIVE DIALLERS – MARCH 2006
STATUS / COMMENTS
c) calls which are not answered must ring for a minimum of 15 seconds before being terminated;
 
1) Members must ensure their predictive dialers are adjusted to ensure a minimum ring time of 15 seconds for all calls before the call is terminated.
 
The supervisor can set the minimum Ring Time on the Dialer Settings tab of Interviewing Options. The default is 15 seconds.
The system administrator can set a minimum ring time such that supervisors cannot set the Ring Time lower than that minimum. The default value is 0. Changing these defaults is covered in the UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer Server User’s Guide in the Changing the Default Settings topics under Interviewing Options.
When dialling for an extension (for example, due to preview dialling), the interviewer cannot choose a call outcome through the user interface until the minimum ring time has passed. The studio must instruct the interviewers not to put the extension on-hook while the call still is ringing.
a) the ‘abandoned call’ rate shall be no more than three per cent of ‘live calls’ on each individual campaign over any 24 hour period;
2) The predictive dialer must at all times be adjusted to ensure that the rate of calls abandoned is no more than 3% of live calls on each individual campaign for any 24 hour period. Statistics which record this must be created daily across all call centres operating for a research organization. Monitoring must be sufficient to identify any single call centre or predictive dialer which consistently generates more than 3% of abandoned calls in the UK.
UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer Server keeps a live calculation of the percent silent calls. The supervisor can specify a dialling aggressiveness, target silent call percentage and a maximum silent call percentage on the Dialer Settings tab in Interviewing Options. The predictive script delivered as part of UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer Server 4.5 patch 1 will attempt to dial to reach the target silent call percentage but will not exceed the maximum percentage as long as the interviewers are properly trained. The studio must instruct the interviewers not to put the extension on-hook while dialling is occurring.
 
3) Members must maintain an up to date archive of predictive dialer statistics which clearly demonstrate compliance with these Regulations. This must include a daily summary of:
▪a. The number of calls attempted
▪b. The number of silent calls generated by the dialling equipment.
The dialer maintains a detailed log of all calls (“call.log”) which reports can be run against, see comments for Regulation 4.
This feature requires at least QTC 1.6 or UNICOM Intelligence Dialer 2.0.
In addition, UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer Server maintains a HistoryTable database table for each project. This table shows each call attempted and its outcome including silent calls. A report of silent calls vs. live calls and attempted calls over the life of a project is available from the Phone Reports UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer Server Administration activity. A UNICOM Intelligence script that runs all reports for a particular time period is available in the UNICOM Intelligence Development Library.
g) records are kept for a minimum period of six months that demonstrate compliance with the above procedures.
4) Records of predictive dialer statistics (in summary form) which clearly demonstrate compliance with Regulation 3 must be retained for a minimum of 6 months and must be available for inspection by all centres that use predictive dialers. The statistics can be stored in either electronic or manual format; and can be kept centrally or across call centres.
Note that Ofcom's record keeping requirement pertains to all items a-f, not just to the abandoned call rate (item a).
The dialer maintains a detailed log of all calls (“call.log”) which reports can be run against. The log can be used to demonstrate compliance with the regulations marked as a, c, d and e. The market research agency using the dialer is responsible for collecting and storing the log files and creating the summary reports.
This feature requires at least QTC 1.6 or UNICOM Intelligence Dialer 2.0.
A report of silent calls vs. live calls over the life of the project is also available from the Phone Reports UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer Server Administration activity. A UNICOM Intelligence script that runs all reports for a particular time period is available in the UNICOM Intelligence Development Library.
 
5) Members must ensure that written procedures are available which detail the following:
▪a. How predictive dialers are set;
▪b. How silent call generation is monitored;
▪c. How silent call complaints are dealt with.
The market research agency using the dialer is responsible for providing these documented procedures.
e) for each outbound call a CLI number is presented to which a return call may be made which is not charged at a higher rate than the national call rate;
6.22 [...] Where users have the ability to choose the CLI number that is forwarded (this is known as a Presentation Number), the deliberate sending of an inauthentic or misleading number from which it is not possible to identify the caller and which does not enable the recipient of a call to return a message is a form of misuse. [...]
6) Where predictive dialers are used members must provide relevant caller line identification (CLI) on all outbound calls. A return call to the CLI number presented must not be charged at a higher rate than the national call rate.
The dialer can provide CLI. The CLI can be the number of the dialer itself or a Direct Dial-In number associated with the dialer's ISDN lines. The CLI could also be any other number belonging to the market research agency or to the client on whose behalf the survey is conducted, possibly a Freephone number (800-number). The ability to provide such a CLI is an ISDN subscription option (Presentation Number, PN CLI).
A common CLI, sent with each outbound call, can be specified in “dialer.ini”. This feature requires at least QTC 1_4f.
The common CLI can be overridden on a per-project or per-sample basis. These features require at least QTC 1.6.20 or UNICOM Intelligence Dialer 2.1.
The UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer Server supervisor can set a per project CLI on the Dialer Settings tab in Interviewing Options. Sending a different CLI per-sample record requires updates to the provided multimode1_sample.mrs example script but is possible by setting the CallerID interview property in that script.
f) any call made by the called person to the contact number provided shall not be used as an opportunity to market to that person, without that person’s consent;
7) If a research organization is engaged in a non-research project, any call made by the called person to the contact number provided must not be used as an opportunity to market to that person, without that person’s consent.
This is the responsibility of the market research agency using the dialer.
b) in the event of an ‘abandoned call’, a very brief recorded information message is played within two seconds of the call being answered, which contains at least the following information:
▪the identity of the company on whose behalf the call was made (which will not necessarily be the same company that is making the call);
▪details of a no charge (0800) or Special Services basic rate (0845) number the called person can contact so they have the possibility of declining to receive further calls from that company;
▪includes no marketing content and is not used as an opportunity to market to the called person;
8) In the event of an abandoned call, a very brief recorded information message must be played within two seconds of the call being answered, which:
a. Identifies the company on whose behalf the call was made;
b. Offers the called person the possibility of declining to receive further calls from the company by contacting a no charge (0800) or Special Services basic rate (0845) number;
c. Includes no marketing content and is not used as an opportunity to market to the called person.
The dialer can automatically play a sound file before abandoning a call. This feature requires UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer Server 4.5 and QTC 1.6.20 or UNICOM Intelligence Dialer 2.1.
The supervisor can set the name of the silent call announcement file in the Dialer Settings tab of Interviewing Options.
It is the responsibility of the market research agency that the recorded sound file contains the required information. Please be aware that users with echo cancelling terminals (cordless, mobile and hands-free phones), hearing aids, and senior citizens or people with disabilities may miss the beginning of the recording, either because they have not yet the headset in front of the ear, or because the echo canceller disables the audio path. UNICOM Systems, Inc. recommends that the essential information (company name, telephone number) be repeated later in the message.
d) when an ‘abandoned call’ has been made to a particular number, any repeat calls to that number in the following 72 hours must be made by a live operator;
9) When an abandoned call has been made to a particular number, any repeat calls to that number in the following 72 hours must be made by a live operator.
The UNICOM Systems, Inc.-supplied sample management scripts move participant records with a silent call to the SILENT queue. An appointment time is set based on the Silent Appointment parameter on the Parameters tab of the Interviewing Options UNICOM Intelligence Interviewer Server Administration activity (default 4320 minutes (72 hours)). These samples won't be dialled again, unless the supervisor moves them to a queue that is used for dialling.
Tackling abandoned and silent calls (January 2010)
Refer to the Ofcom statement published in January of 2010 for information on tackling abandoned and silent calls. Key changes and additions include:
▪A1.54 - When an abandoned call (other than an AMD false positive), has been made to a particular number, any repeat calls to that number in the following 72 hours may only be made with the guaranteed presence of a live operator.
▪A1.55 - When a call has been identified by AMD equipment as being picked up by an answer machine (including AMD false positives), any repeat calls to that specific number within the same 24 hour period may only be made with the guaranteed presence of a live operator.
▪A1.101 - Ofcom may also impose a financial penalty where a notified misuser has contravened a requirement of a section 129 enforcement notification. The upper limit for such a penalty is currently £2 million following the Communications Act 2003 (Maximum Penalty for Persistent Misuse of Network or Service) Order 201044.
Keep the above items in mind when designing .mrs dialing scripts for use in the United Kingdom.
The hold time should never exceed the defined time, that the respective regulatory body allows, before classifying a call as silent.
See
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