Public services face customer relationship management issues
Jan. 9, 2023
Public services: customer relations too turbulent?
An article has just been published about the unreachability of public services by telephone and the anger of users. In fact, a survey by the magazine 60 millions de consommateurs shows that the various public services respond very poorly to telephone calls.
As part of this survey conducted with the Défenseure des droits,"1,532 calls were made, between September 26 and November 10, 2022, by callers representing three types of user needing telephone contact for information requests or procedures (a person without internet, another with internet but poor command of French, an elderly person with internet), as well as by a 'lambda' caller to check for any differences in treatment." states the article.
What does the law say?
From March 1, 2023, service providers in the sector will be subject to stricter rules for their telemarketing activities. The decree implementing the law aimed at regulating telephone canvassing and combating fraudulent calls will limit the legal opening hours for telephone canvassing. It will only be authorized from 10am to 1pm and from 2pm to 8pm. It will be prohibited at weekends. Another change is that sales representatives will no longer be allowed to solicit a consumer more than four times a month on behalf of the same company. If the person on the other end of the line refuses the solicitation, they cannot be contacted again for sixty days from the date of refusal.
These new provisions are in addition to another regulation, decided by Arcep, which prohibits, since January 1, the use of numbers beginning with 06 or 07, for automated calls dialed by contact center software. Calls made from predictive dialing systems, or progressive dialing with answering machine detection, will have to be made from a special category of numbers: NPVs (verified multipurpose numbers). This obligation should make it possible to clearly identify the originator behind a given number, and thus guarantee call traceability. If the originator's agreement is not established, telephone operators must block these outgoing calls.
What are the penalties for non-compliance?
Penalties for non-compliance with the anti-solicitation list by professionals can reach up to €75,000 for an individual and €375,000 for a legal entity. This is enough to make professionals tremble and encourage strict compliance with these rules.
A growing constraint for contact centers?
In a way, contact centers are paying the price for the practices of these less than virtuous market players... These new regulations, which follow on from Bloctel, are worrying and naturally raise questions. First and foremost, the decree on time slots is likely to have a negative impact on smaller service providers, who rely heavily on outbound calls. It could also encourage relocation.
Nevertheless, some contact centers haven't waited for the law on working hours to adopt healthier practices, thanks in part to adapted tools. Especially now that omnichannel is becoming a necessity!
