Sometimes part of customer service is making sure that you never bother them again. It’s a sad part of the call center business, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Since the United States Federal Trade Commission established the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry in 2003, DNC blocking earned extra importance.
In most call centers, there are two kinds of Do Not Call lists:
1) An external DNC list. This may be provided by a regulatory agency, such as the US FTC. It may be provided by an external source, mandated by your contracts. Or you may simply have a means of collecting numbers and putting them on your list. These are people who have not necessarily been in contact with your call center specifically, but that you should definitely not call.
2) An internal DNC list. These are most often people who have requested to be put on your DNC list. This may have been after you made an outbound call, or they may have called for the purpose of being put on your DNC list. Normally, compliance with such requests is mandatory.
Where it gets complicated is there are often exceptions to these lists. For instance, if someone is on a National DNC, but they have specifically contacted you or the company you represent, you may be in a business relationship that trumps the DNC status and allows you to dial. Or your call center may be dialing for an exempt institution. Regulations vary on this from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In any case, you may find yourself having to maintain different lists for different purposes.
Good call center software will allow you to maintain separate DNC lists per outbound campaign. You should also have the tools to copy lists, load in new numbers from time to time, and possibly most importantly, automatically put anybody on the list when the call is dispositioned as DNC for that campaign.
In addition to the lists, your dialer should check the list at time of dial, so that new additions that may occur after your lead list was scrubbed (you are scrubbing your leads, aren’t you?) won’t get accidentally dialed and incur the wrath of call recipients (and potential fines). Only with such a multi-pronged approach can you be certain your dialer is not going to land you in hot water.