Public services facing customer relationship management issues

Public Services: A Troubled Customer Relationship?

An article has just been published about the inability to reach public services by phone and the anger of users. Indeed, a survey by the magazine 60 million consumers shows that the different public services respond very little to phone calls.

As part of this survey conducted with the Defender of Rights, "1532 calls were made between September 26 and November 10, 2022, by callers representing three types of users needing a phone contact for inquiries or procedures (one person without internet, another with internet but poorly mastering French, an elderly person with internet), as well as a 'generic' caller to check for any differences in treatment." specifies the article.

What does the law say?

As of March 1, 2023, service providers in the sector will be subject to stricter rules for their telemarketing activities. The application decree of the law aimed at regulating cold calling and combating fraudulent calls will limit the legal hours for cold calling. It will only be allowed from 10 AM to 1 PM and from 2 PM to 8 PM. It will be prohibited on weekends. Another change is that sales representatives will no longer be allowed to contact a consumer more than four times a month on behalf of the same company. If the person on the line refuses cold calling, they cannot be contacted again for sixty days from the date of refusal.

These new provisions add to another regulation, decided by Arcep, which prohibits, since January 1, the use of numbers starting with 06 or 07 for automated calls made by contact center software. These calls made from predictive dialing systems or progressive dialing with answering machine detection must be made from a category of special numbers : NPV (verified versatile numbers). This obligation must clearly identify the order giver behind each number, and thus ensure the traceability of calls. In cases where the agreement of the order giver is not established, telephone operators must block these outgoing calls.

What are the penalties for non-compliance?

Penalties for non-compliance with the opposition list to telemarketing by professionals can go 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?

Contact centers are somewhat paying the consequences of the practices of these less virtuous market players... These new regulations, which continue the work of Bloctel, raise concerns and naturally raise questions. The decree on time slots will likely first negatively impact the smallest providers, much of whose business relies on outbound calls. Furthermore, this could also encourage relocations.

Nevertheless, some contact centers have not waited for the law on time slot regulation to adopt healthier practices, partly thanks to suitable tools. Especially with omnichannel becoming a necessity!