“Tooooooooot [ship horn honking]. Congratulations! You have won…”

By then I have usually hung up the phone.

Telemarketers.

One of the most annoying forms of interruption marketing: interruption telemarketing.

To the rescue (?):

[drumroll...]

Canada’s New Do-Not-Call List

But, things here in Canada are about to change. On September 30, 2008 the do-not-call list officially begins operating. It was announced yesterday by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), and all over the news now. From that moment on, Canadians can register online or by phone (the toll-free number is not available yet) with Bell Canada, who is administering the list on behalf of the CRTC. Land lines, fax numbers and cell phones can be registered and registrations can are valid for three years.

No, no reminders from the Registry that you need to re-register. Just mark it in your Calendars, OK?

After a grace period of 31 days, so until the end of October 2008, all reported complaints about telemarketing could result in a fine of $1500 per person or $15000 if it regards a corporation.

Exemptions

Charities, political parties, polling firms, newspapers and companies that have done business with an individual over the past 18 months are exempt. And Business-to-Business calls.

There is a lot of criticism over the large number of exemptions in the act. Loopholes, if you will.

• Political telemarketing. Of course, politicians can interrupt us when they want – to foster a “strong democracy”. Looking after themselves when they created the Act, is what I feel about this.
• Lots of telemarketers will probably start Joint Ventures with Registered Charities, whereby they donate a portion of their sales to the charities.
• Polling Firms can also develop a whole new industry by pre-selling people on certain products with sponsored surveys.
• Newspaper Subscriptions? No, thank you. Really do not know why selling subscriptions warrants an exception to the Do-Not-Call-List rules.

He, all you need is a foot in the door, right?

The only telemarketing exemtions that makes sense to me is where you can contact existing business relations: people that you have done business with in the last 18 months. That is called “customer service” (when done well, of course). And Business-to-Business calls, of course.

The Most Tricky Exemption

This one is hardly talked about. I read it in the fact sheet on the CRTC’s website:

“Organizations who obtain your consent to be called may also call you, even though you may be registered on the National DNCL.”
- CRTC’s Fact Sheet on Canada’s Do-Not-Call-Registry

Expect to be getting a lot of questions whether it is OK for someone to call you. This will be a standard question, just like the canned sentence “this call may be monitored or recorded for quality purposes”.

iOptOut.ca

The good thing is that you CAN ask those organizations to take you off their list. But these requests can easily get lost, if they are not traceable in a central list.

Or no… there IS a centralized list.

In March 2008 a centralized list was started: iOptOut.ca. You can choose from the hundreds of excepted organizations and send them an automated e-mail removal request.

Upside: No More Calls

As a business owner, you will save time and money with less “prank calls” (…hello, helloho!…), You will also save on your fax rolls – unsolicited faxes are the reason why I keep my fax off until I know I have to use it.

Downside: No More Calls

Of course, if you rely heavily on cold calling you have to be extra careful. But you should try to stay away from interruption marketing anyway. Find ways that people contact you, and allow you to contact them: Permission Marketing. One such technique is starting a blog (free ebook), and building a relationship with your readers (read: potential customers).

Yes, this also works for companies who deal with local customers. People are searching for local information a lot – so make sure you are being found! This free guide gives you a lot of pointers on how to write a profitable blog. It is geared towards affiliate marketing, but with a down-to-earth approach that works for any type of blog and business. Good reading material!

Resources:

• Canada’s Do-Not-Call-List website
  NOTE: www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca: such an insightful URL; I’ll certainly remember that one {cynical} ;o)
• Stop calls from exempt organizations: iOptOut.ca
• Fact Sheet on the new do-not-call-list on the CRTC website
• Yaro Starak’s free e-book on blogging

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