Sales Technologies Ltd
Suite 38, Connies House
Rhymney Riverbridge Road
Cardiff
CF23 9AF
The Corporate TPS time bomb
The background
Due to pressure being exerted on the government by small business representative bodies, the DTI announced that from 25th June 2004 it it would be illegal for companies to make outbound telemarketing sales calls to those businesses who have registered with the Telephone Preference Service.The TPS Service was set up in 1999 to allow domestic consumers to halt the number of cold calls received. Over 5.5m people have registered. There are however in excess of 98m telephone lines in the U.K.
The TPS is run under licence by a private organisation on behalf of the DTI and generates its income by selling businesses the TPS database, which is updated every 28 days. In order to ensure compliance, subscribers must purchase the list every 28 days, at an annual cost of between £1.000 - £12.000.
Despite general outcry from the business community the right to opt-out from unsolicited calls has now been extended to Ltd companies, Plc’s schools, hospitals and government offices.
The law became effective on 25th June 2006 and it is now an offence punishable by a £5000 fine to make an unsolicited call to anyone (at home or at work) who has opted out.
Leaving aside the argument about whether Corporate TPS is a good or a bad idea, it is becoming clear that the way the CTPS is to be administered will add substantially to the costs of any business making unsolicited calls (and if you include those spur-of-the-moment sales calls that almost everyone makes that means virtually every business in the UK).
TPS Ltd (who administer the scheme) have announced that the Corporate TPS file will not contain sole traders or partnerships. These will continue to be held in the "individual" (consumer) TPS file. This decision means that if you do not know the legal status of the business you want to call (and you often won't) you will have to check the number against both TPS files.
So if you were planning to subscribe to the Corporate TPS file at a cost of £3750 you will now have to subscribe to the "individual" TPS file as well - total cost £11,250 pa not including the cost of your time etc.
A recent survey of over 900 marketers showed that 23% intended to ignore the new law. At a cost of over £11,000 per year to comply, many more will surely choose to ignore this badly thought out legislation.
How will CTPS affect my business?
If you make only a small number of outbound sales calls, to companies each month, you will need to comply. You can go to the CTPS website and ‘clean’ your lists, by paying a levy, charged per name! or you can source CTPS cleansed lists from approved TPS suppliers. Both of these solutions are expensive.
Which is our favoured solution?
It is possible to clean your lists for free, by registering with one our favoured data suppliers on their website at: www.marketingfile.com. They do not plan to charge for this service at present. Alternatively, there will be a rush of low cost telephone routers who will be offering a CTPS compliant overlay to bar all outgoing calls to subscribers. This is our favoured solution. We have been trialing this service and are so impressed by its ease of use we will be offering it as a service to our clients during September 2004.
Our commitment to our clients
•As the only outbound telephone marketing service for most of our clients, we will ensure full CTPS compliance. We do not charge for this service at present, even if using client sourced data.
•Data purchased from A Smarter Splash Ltd, will be fully CTPS compliant at the point of sale.
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We will keep our fully clients informed of compliance solutions as they become available.
For more information on sourcing clean data click here. If we can help you further please email us at the address to the left of your screen.
file at a cost of £3750 you will now have to subscribe to the "individual" TPS file as well - total cost £11,250 pa not including the cost of your time etc.