As privacy compliance regulations become more stringent, an increasing number of organizations are being penalized for activities that were once seen as standard practice for sales and marketing. In the UK, for example, a home improvement business was recently fined £200,000 for making over 500,000 unsolicited cold calls.
Inadvertently contacting individuals who have opted into the country’s official Do Not Call Registry is a common mistake. The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) creates a master list of every consumer within the UK who has opted out of unsolicited sales and marketing phone calls. Many other countries have a similar system.
It’s very important for organizations to stay informed about and compliant with the latest privacy regulations in every country that they conduct business. Do Not Call lists for every country should be an integral part of any global privacy compliance strategy and ZoomInfo is committed to making them easy to automate and activate for businesses.
What is a Do Not Call List?
A Do Not Call list refers to a list of consumers who have self-registered their numbers in a Do Not Call Registry, to lessen the amount of telemarketing phone calls they receive on their home and personal mobile phones.
Unfortunately, Do Not Call lists are not currently a universal practice, instead they are created on a country-by-country basis. It’s also worth noting that the UK, for example, established the Corporate Telephone Preference Service which impacts businesses that sell to other businesses.
How Can My Organization Track Do Not Call Lists at Scale?
As privacy compliance regulations increase, the repercussions for violating the rights of those who have registered for Do Not Call lists can result in hefty fines.
When it comes to complying with Do Not Call lists around the globe, your organization has two options:
- manually track each list for each country you serve
- automate the tracking process
We recommend the second option: automation. Your team can automate Do Not Call list tracking directly inside the ZoomInfo platform. With our Do Not Call Suppression feature, admins can automatically filter out Do Not Call numbers from your team’s search results.
How Does the ZoomInfo Do Not Call Suppression Feature Work?
Contacts that have registered themselves on Do Not Call lists will be automatically suppressed from the entire ZoomInfo platform and any tool within it. This eliminates the chance that a salesperson would reach out to someone who has opted-out of sales and marketing phone calls.
It’s important to note that the Do Not Call Suppression feature is optional and it is up to each ZoomInfo customer to decide if they would like this feature enabled or not. Also, even if someone is on a Do Not Call list, if they are an existing customer of yours, your company may have a permissible reason to contact them.
Currently, the ZoomInfo Do Not Call Suppression feature supports lists from the following countries:
- Australia
- Canada
- France
- Germany
- Ireland
- New Zealand
- UK (Corporate Telephone Preference Service)
- UK (Telephone Preference Service)
- US
Check out ZoomInfo’s Knowledge Center to learn how internal admins can enable the Do Not Call Suppression Feature.
Do Not Call List Exemptions for Business-to-Business (B2B) Calls
It’s also important to note that when it comes to activities between businesses, there are some exemptions to the Do Not Call list rules. Of the countries listed above, the following have specific exemptions for business-to-business phone calls:
- Australia: Business phone numbers are not eligible for registration on Australia’s Do Not Call Registry. In cases when a number is used for both personal and business use, that phone number may be eligible for registration if it is used mostly for private or domestic purposes.
- Canada: Canada’s Do Not Call list rules do not apply to telemarketing calls made to business phone numbers.
- France: Business phone numbers are not eligible for registration on France’s Do Not Call Registry. Note: a phone number that is used for both personal and professional purposes can be registered.
- Germany: Business phone numbers are not eligible for registration on Germany’s Do Not Call Registry. Note: Checking against the Do Not Call list prior to making a sales or marketing call is voluntary and not mandatory in Germany.
- New Zealand: Business phone numbers are not eligible for registration on New Zealand’s Do Not Call list. Note: Checking against the Do Not Call list prior to making a sales or marketing call is voluntary and not mandatory in New Zealand.
- The United States: Telemarketing calls to a business to induce the purchase of goods or services (except for calls to induce the retail sale of non-durable office or cleaning supplies) are exempt from the Telemarketing Sales Rule’s prohibition on calling phone numbers listed on the national Do Not Call Registry. Additionally, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s prohibition on calling phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry only applies to “residential telephone subscribers.” Cell phones registered on the Do Not Call Registry are presumed to be residential telephone subscribers.
Note: Ireland and the UK do not have specific business-to-business exemptions, so it’s important to keep that in mind when conducting activities in those countries.
More Considerations for Global Privacy Compliance
There are seemingly an endless amount of privacy considerations that a global business needs to keep in mind to properly scale their privacy compliance and avoid being penalized.
When it comes to global privacy compliance, we recommend that you:
- Understand the needs of your business, and customers
- Start small and iterate over time
- Acknowledge what’s going on around the world
“The key to navigating global privacy compliance is to be realistic and to align internal stakeholders on expectations. Every data privacy compliance strategy is going to look a bit different and be unique to the particular business. The good news is that your business is likely to have all of the information it needs to start today. We recommend starting small and straight away, and then iterating over time.” — Simon McDougall, Chief Compliance Officer, ZoomInfo
Note: The ZoomInfo Do Not Call Suppression feature is provided for your convenience only, and is not a substitute for your own privacy compliance with applicable laws. ZoomInfo does not assume any additional liability in connection with this feature, which is provided strictly on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis.