The newest bipartisan robocall bill has just been released by Congress and is looking very favorable to pass quickly. This compromise legislation is the result of efforts earlier this year by both the Senate and the House to curb illegal robocall traffic.
Back in May, the Senate passed the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act by a vote of 97–1, shortly after in July, the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act was passed by the House by a vote of 429–3. The Pallone-Thune TRACED Act represents a compromise and merging of these two bills.
To understand this new legislation from a call center perspective, we joined forces with the team at Arbeit Software, a leading contact software provider for call centers, small businesses and debt collection agencies, to explore.
In this video, Rebekah Johnson, Founder & CEO of Numeracle is joined by Ashley Campanella and Tracy Montour of Arbeit Software to discuss the main points of this new legislation and its expected impact. The Pallone-Thune TRACED Act mandates implementation of STIR/SHAKEN by voice service providers; we take an in-depth look into what exactly that means for the state of call delivery. We also explore what this means for collection agencies relying on the voice channel to communicate with consumers, and what, if anything, can be done to prepare.
There is a lot of misunderstanding that this bill magically stops robocalls and identifies which calls are robocalls and which are not.
This framework actually has nothing to do with stopping robocalls. Robocalls in and of themselves are not bad. There are bad actors that perform fraud through the use of robocalls, but the use of the technology, itself, is not bad until it becomes used for fraud. The call authentication framework supported by this bill is all about identifying who is using the voice channel, putting some kind of identifier on top of the call to identify those who are committing fraud, and giving government regulators more tools to find and penalize these bad actors.
From a call center and collections perspective, one of your top concerns should still be understanding and remediating how your calls are being perceived by the call blocking and labeling analytics. Even after STIR/SHAKEN, analytics can still mark an authenticated call as a ‘bad call’ and block it.
The most important proactive step you can take is to identify yourself and register your phone numbers.
Industry leadership is fully aware of the need to reconcile analytics with STIR/SHAKEN to make these two work together both seamlessly and accurately once STIR/SHAKEN is fully deployed. This is one of the most active topics being discussed as legislation around the implementation of this technology progresses.
2020 will be chocked full of multiple opportunities for folks in our industry and across the call center space to weigh in on what you would like to see happen with the FCC’s continued rulemaking coming out of the TRACED Act. Taking advantage of the opportunity to influence what the final rulings will look like is the absolute best thing you can do, especially when comments are requested around the safe harbor for the blocking of calls, and other topics directly impacting your ability to connect with consumers.
If you’d like to engage with Numeracle on best practices to stay proactive in the call delivery space, get in touch today! We provide a path for legal callers to prevent the improper blocking and labeling of your calls today, and can also prepare you for call delivery success post-STIR/SHAKEN.
To learn more about our strategic partnership with Arbeit Software, click here.
