Telephone Preference Service
From today corporate subscribers will be able to register the telephone numbers that they do not wish unsolicited direct marketing calls and it is now a legal obligation for anyone making direct marketing calls to ensure they do not call corporate subscribers who have registered their wish not to be called.
For information and registration click: TPS
(You will find that the registration screen splits the telephone number into categories that most of us have never heard of. The area code box is fine, but the number field will only accept 4 digits – if you enter the last 4 digits in field 3 and the previous ones in field 2, you will see on later screens that it works OK.)
8 Comments:
Thanks for this info - very useful for a small business like us who gets lots of unwanted calls.
John
I had 6 calls yesterday from marketing companies (mostly selling telephone services). Having registered with this service I now look forward to pointing out that they break the law when they call me. Perhaps that might give me a bit of a break.
As a Director of a small business I cannot understand the issue with cold calls. I need to find every avenue to run my business effectively, if someone out there has a product or service that can make me more efficient or save money I want to know about it. As I can't spend all day searching for these things I'd rather people phoned me with an idea.
If I'm interested I'll talk, if it isn't relevant I'll say goodbye, it hardly costs any time. TPS is an idea that stifles selling in this country, it works for private indiviuals and is an awful idea in a commercial world built on businesses needing to contact each other!
Since posting this item I have spoken to a number of companies about whether the TPS service for businesses is a benefit or hinderance. The common view, whether for or against it, is that it looks like yet another instance of the 'nanny-state' and it is a law that cannot possibly by applied in a widespread fashion without clogging up the courts.
The last comment posted certainly covers a lot of the feeling against the TPS service i.e. it is for business managers to decide whether to accept the call or terminate it. The arguement against this comes perhaps from those businesses who are being targeted more frequently, and in this case for a small business it is very distruptive taking several unsolicited calls every day.
The greatest concern expressed by people who have spoken to me, is that the legislation becomes another hurdle for themselves to face when making cold-calls. Nowadays, it seems that you can't send an email to someone without getting their permisssion and you can't phone then if their company has registered with the TPS service.
How many of our competitors in other countries will be following such stiffling measures for their businesses?
Please keep your views coming and if there is a strong concensus, I will write to the TPS service and other bodies to raise your concerns.
With reference to the new legislation introduced on June 25th of this year, your readership may be interested to know of an excellent free service I have found (and now use) which will benefit any company who needs to make “cold calls” to prospective businesses – automatic TPS call screening, which automatically bars any call you make to a TPS-registered number. Now you need never be concerned about risking the £5,000 fine, or paying over £11,000 for annual TPS membership!
To learn more about it, have a look at www.businesstelecomservices.co.uk
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Thanks for letting us know about this.
Having looked into this solution, the downside for companies with special bundled prices may be that you go back to higher 'per-minute' call charges, but if you are in the business of making lots of cold calls, then this might be a neat solution for you.
Marketing File - a direct marketing data provider - has produced a free number checker at www.numberchecker.co.uk
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