News Focus: Telemarketing firms urged not to despair over TPS

by Melanie May, Direct Response 01-Dec-05

The death of the cold call will occur in June 2007 if registrations to the TPS continue at the current rate, attendees at the MM Teleperformance Executive Forum heard this November.

Speaking at the event on emerging and current trends and issues in the
UK telemarketing industry, Mike Havard, managing director of customer
management consultancy CM Insight, warned that the TPS would have

reached saturation point by this date at the current registration

rate.

While the DMA has reported that registrations to the TPS fell in October
by 50 per cent, new registrations coming via the high-profile BT Privacy
campaign have now reached 1.3 million.

"BT Privacy is saying 'we're the consumer champion' and, very cleverly,
also stopping competitors from calling its customer base," said
Havard.

"It's tapping into the consumer psyche and giving itself a competitive
edge."

Havard urged firms using telemarketing not to despair but to look at the
commercial opportunity that rising TPS registrations afford. "It is not
the death of outbound but the death of cold calling. Do outbound
sensitively, using best practice and understand what you are really
there to do, which is to manage customer conversations."

The offshore outsourcing debate also came under scrutiny in the
presentation.

Havard indicated that the future of outsourcing would be about gaining
access to skills that are lacking in the UK, rather than to solve staff
shortages or cut costs. Companies should be considering the impact of
outsourcing on their brand, as well as their customers.

"Few organisations understand the value implications of going offshore,
particularly concerning their brand," he said.

"Consider your product when you are running a call centre. Your
frontline agent is the most important weapon in terms of shifting
customer behaviour to where you want it."

The forum kicked off with an opening address by Jeff Smith, chairman and
CEO of MM Teleperformance, followed by a presentation by Jean-Francois
Guillot, a member of the executive committee of MM Teleperformance
parent company SR Teleperformance.

Guillot spoke on the firm's experience, gained over 25 years of
operation, and global trends and predictions.

See feature, page 47.