US Voice compliance

US Voice compliance guidelines

Opt-in

It's important to obtain express consent before making any telemarketing calls to a contact. This means that you must have written or oral permission to call a contact before making any calls. You can obtain consent through opt-in forms on your website or via a recorded message that explicitly asks the recipient if they agree to receive calls from your business.

Opt-out

If a customer requests to be removed from your call list, you must honor their request and comply with it immediately. The customer should be able to request to opt-out at any time. Some opt-out mechanisms for Voice include:

• Providing the ability to opt-out at the beginning of a call.

• An IVR menu that prompts the contact to press a key to opt-out. This is a requirement if you use pre-recorded messages or auto-dialer to contact your customers.

• Calling a specific number to opt-out.

• Choosing to opt-out from their account settings.

Using pre-recorded messages or an auto-dialer? You must provide an IVR menu where a customer can press a key to opt-out.

Once you have received an opt-out request from a customer, you must remove their number from your call list and ensure that they do not receive any further telemarketing calls from your business.

Opting-out from receiving calls must not incur any additional fees for the customer, or require them to speak to someone to complete the opt-out process.

Maintain a Do-Not-Call list

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) maintains a national do-not-call list that telemarketers must check before making any calls.

In addition to this list, telemarketers must maintain their own internal do-not-call list of customers who have requested not to receive calls from their business. It's important to regularly update and maintain these lists to avoid calling customers who do not wish to be contacted.

Identify yourself and the purpose of the call

When making telemarketing calls, TCPA requires you to clearly identify yourself at the beginning of the conversation. This includes providing your name, your business name, and contact information, as well as the reason for the call. This also helps build trust with the recipient and ensures that they are aware of why you are calling.

Telemarketers are prohibited from deliberately misrepresenting their identity or displaying inaccurate caller ID information.

Limit calling hours

The TCPA sets restrictions on when businesses can place voice calls to their customers, prohibiting any telephone solicitation before 8 AM and after 9 PM in the recipient's time zone, which are commonly known as "quiet hours." However, it's important to note that some states have stricter rules.

Call recording consents

You are required to tell a recipient that their call is being recorded before the recording starts.

Recording consent requirements differ from one state to another. In some states, this may be as simple as playing a message that informs the call participants that the call is being recorded. In others, you may need to obtain consent from at least one, or even every participant in the call.

US and Robocalling

In an attempt to combat Spam and Robocalling, many operators are implementing additional filtering to protect consumers against such activities. Businesses doing automated calling might face the problem of their numbers being marked as likely spam. This article explains more on how Bird CRM complies with the latest security and compliance standards to ensure the channels have a high consumer trust, but also limits numbers wrongfully being flagged as spam by the carriers.

When purchasing a number through Bird, we will pre-register this number with all major carriers to reduce legitimate calls being flagged as spam. We also verify all of our voice calls with STIR/SHAKEN in the United States.

In some cases, even though we have taken all available steps to prevent this, your number may be flagged by one or more of the carriers as a potential spam call. This can have various reasons:

• Irregular call pattern, such as a high amount of outbound calls in a short period, or repetitive calls to the same number

• Enduser complaint(s) received by the carriers

Here are a few recommendations on what you can do in case your number is flagged as spam:

• Local numbers: We recommend using local numbers as much as possible to ensure you deliver a localised experience.

• Number registration: register your number with well known number reputations registrars, If you’re in the US and your call(s) be flagged by the Carriers, or Third-Party software such as Hiya as potential spam we advise you to register your numbers with the “Free Caller Registry” through the following website (free of charge). This will submit a registration to each of the three major databases used by the US carriers for number analysis; TNS, Hiya and First Orion. Alternatively, you can reach out to these companies directly:

  • First Orion (used by T-Mobile)
  • Hiya (used by AT&T, as an app on Samsung and other Android phones)
  • TNS (used by Verizon and US Cellular)

Please note that registration may take 1-2 weeks to complete.

• Use multiple numbers: rotating calls from different numbers can also reduce the amount of calls you are making to users from the same phone number

• Comply with Do Not Call registries in your operating countries and your business own do not call lists.