New telemarketing rules, national do-not-call list to start Sept. 30

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OTTAWA - It'll be business as usual at New Brunswick call centres when a national list to curb calls from telemarketers takes effect because too many exemptions render the registry futile, says the owner of a Moncton-based outbound call centre.

However, Rick DesBrisay said there are still industry concerns about the rollout of the list on Sept. 30 among call centre owners and staff.

"We don't anticipate job losses," he said.

"But we do expect some backlash against the contact centre industry because about 85 per cent of calls consumers now receive at their homes will be exempt from the provisions of the do-not-call list."

That's because political parties, charities, pollsters, newspapers, and companies who have an existing business relationship with the client will still be allowed to call.

The CRTC has chosen Bell Canada to maintain and update the do-not-call list.

The Ontario-based telecommunications giant is tasked with compiling a database of numbers, providing up-to-date lists to telemarketers, and fielding customer complaints while the CRTC conducts investigations and levies fines to those who break the rules.

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But DesBrisay said he doesn't expect his outbound call volumes to change much because his company already has existing business relationships with clients.

"It's going to be quite a mess," he said.

"People are going to expect the phone to stop ringing and it won't. There's going to be an uproar about it."

He said CRTC has done a poor job of explaining to Canadians who can call and who can't, adding questions still swirl about how companies are expected to manage registry information effectively.

"Every outbound caller will need a system of maintaining the updated national do-not-call list and scrubbing all outbound calls against that list," he said.

"No one has given any serious thought to how that's going to be done and here we are two months away from implementation. There are a tonne of unanswered questions."

Each business is also tasked with preserving an internal do-not-call list that will log existing clients who no longer want to be contacted, DesBrisay said.

Government spokesman Andrew Holland said Business New Brunswick doesn't expect the do-not-call list to scuttle call centre operations in the province.

However, he said there is some concern about how government plans to encourage outbound telemarketing investment to the province.

"As a new business, they would not have an existing relationship with clients," he said.

"They would not be able to make introductory business-to-business calls to new customers."

Holland said government will monitor the rollout of the legislation to determine the impact on new start-up firms.

About 19,000 NBers work in the call centre industry, which generates about $1 billion in annual revenues.

Nancy Webster Cole, senior manager of telemarketing regulations at the CRTC, said the new rules will help limit the number of unwanted calls.

Companies who break the rules can be fined up to $15,000 while individual violators could be on the hook for up to $1,500.

Donna Miller, CEO of Contact Centre Canada, said the new rules should give telemarketing companies an opportunity to fine-tune their business models.

"It will drive a higher level of service," she said.

"The culture will have to much more about being polite, engaging and providing more disclosure."