The Do Not Call Registry and You

**Ring Ring**
“Hello, this is Jimmy”

“Good afternoon Mr Dyks…uh…Dyktrah…Dykestrahouser?”

“I’m sorry, he is not available at the moment because you can’t pronounce his last name.”
**Click**

How many of you have had a call like that from a telemarketer offering you a deal on the latest stock tip, a house in Orlando, or a vacation to Tahiti?  If you have and dislike them as much as I do, there are ways to avoid them:

• Do not buy a Snuggie (They hounded me for 5 months, offering me 10 dollar gift cards for 15 dollars a month)
• Use the Do Not Call Registry…it works.

Here’s the National Do Not Call Registry's mission statement (italics mine):

“Pursuant to its authority under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the FCC established, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a national Do-Not-Call Registry. The registry is nationwide in scope, applies to all telemarketers (with the exception of certain non-profit organizations), and covers both interstate and intrastate telemarketing calls. Commercial telemarketers are not allowed to call you if your number is on the registry, subject to certain exceptions. As a result, consumers can, if they choose, reduce the number of unwanted phone calls to their homes.”

The exception applies to Tax-Exempt Non-Profits.  This means you can still contact Constituents who are on the Do Not Call (DNC) list. 

This isn’t a big deal with constituents you have a relationship with, who give regularly and attend events.  They are on the DNC registry to prevent calls from Sham Wow not you.

A gray area exists for constituents you don’t have a close relationship with – somebody who gave a small donation at a booth or the child of an involved parent.  Calling that person may result in a conversation like the one I started the post with.  This does not mean you can’t (or shouldn’t) call these constituents, but you should take the DNC information into consideration.  The more informed you are about your constituents, the more comfortable they’ll feel with your organization.  If there’s another way to contact them (email, snail mail, etc.), start with that and work your way up to phone calls.

We can help you avoid a frustrating phone call with our PhoneFinder service, which will return DNC information on your records (remember, just because we do return the DNC information does not mean you are bound to it).  If you would like you can still choose to exclude the DNC information, just tell us so in an email when you export your PhoneFinder data and we’ll take it out of the import file.

To read more about PhoneFinder, check out Knowledgebase solution BB56458.