Call Center Compliance Guide: How to Protect Your Brand (and Improve Performance) in 2024

In the call center industry, compliance is a year round vigil, to keep up with new laws, new court rulings, and new strategies.

In an ever-changing regulatory environment, adherence to compliance standards remains a cornerstone of brand protection and successful sales and lead generation efforts.

The call center compliance guide below will help you understand and implement the policies, practices, and tools you need to not only protect your operation, but enhance its performance.

Just like the businesses it affects, call center compliance matters are complex. Call center compliance is a multifaceted concept, but it’s primarily concerned with adhering to laws and regulations that govern communication practices. This includes respecting customer privacy, ensuring accuracy in information dissemination, and maintaining ethical standards in the contexts of both sales and customer service.

In a broader sense, compliance also involves adhering to standards set forth by industry-specific regulatory bodies. During an age of the “robocall epidemic,” these standards aim to protect consumers from unethical practices, safeguard their personal data, and ensure a certain standard of service quality.

Meanwhile, for legitimate call centers looking to serve their customers and leads, compliance is not just about avoiding legal pitfalls: It's about fostering trust and reliability in every customer interaction. And, ultimately, it’s about establishing a platform for success.

For today’s call centers, compliance is not just a legal obligation; it's a strategic imperative. Compliant practices help in building a reputable brand image, crucial for establishing customer trust and driving loyalty. In customer service, this trust translates into customer satisfaction and retention, while in sales, it leads to higher conversion rates and client confidence.

On the flip side, non-compliance carries significant risks. As TCPA-related lawsuits continue to increase and federal regulators make clear that bad actors are in the crosshairs, the risks for all centers include legal penalties, financial losses, and a tarnished brand reputation. And in today's digital age, news of even potential non-compliance can spread quickly, causing long-term—and potentially catastrophic—damage to customer relationships and market position.

Furthermore, non-compliant practices can also lead to operational inefficiencies. On the one hand, violations of regulations often result in the need for damage control and crisis management, leading to a waste of already limited resources. On the other hand, they often reflect a less-than-optimal approach to engagement that harms sales potential and service quality.

So, you have a sense of what makes compliance so important. But what exactly are these call center-relevant regulations you need to comply with?

In truth, there are quite a few of them that may affect your business, with each addressing specific areas of contact center operations.

Understanding these call center rules and regulations is the first step toward ensuring your brand can operate within legal boundaries while also providing exceptional service and driving outbound sales performance. Dive into the most prominent compliance measures below.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is a critical—perhaps the most critical—regulation for call centers, especially those engaged in telemarketing, lead generation, and outbound sales.

Established in 1991 to protect consumers from unsolicited calls and messages, the TCPA has been modified many times and continues to be the focus of much call center-related litigation. Indeed, our friend Eric Troutman, legal expert and Czar of TCPAWorld, has called the TCPA “the single biggest litigation cash cow in the history of our country.”

The wide-ranging legislation mandates obtaining prior express written consent before reaching out to customers for marketing purposes using an automatic telephone dialing system or artificial or prerecorded voices. It also restricts calling times and enforces the maintenance of a Do Not Call (DNC) list. (More on the DNC below.)

First established by the TCPA and eventually opened up in 2003, the Do Not Call (DNC) Registry is a crucial tool for consumer protection, allowing individuals to opt out of receiving unsolicited sales and telemarketing calls. Call centers are required to respect this list and refrain from contacting numbers registered on it. Meanwhile, call centers are also required to maintain an internal, or “entity-specific,” DNC list. That means when a customer requests not to be contacted, they must be added to this internal list and their request must be honored.

The TCPA has been the law of the land for over three decades. However, in recent years, we’ve seen the rise of a variety of state-level restrictions that call centers must contend with.

Starting with Florida in 2021 and continuing to today across states like Oklahoma, Maryland, and Washington, individual state legislatures have passed enhanced telemarketing and call center laws. These laws’ similarities to the TCPA led them to be dubbed “Mini TCPAs.”

Of course, there’s a catch: the individual Mini TCPA laws don’t line up with the federal TCPA or with each other. As a result, call centers making calls and sending texts in multiple states frequently have to navigate a patchwork of differing prohibitions and standards. As we’ll explore later on in this guide, successfully navigating these differences can be quite challenging without the right software on your side.

Largely a counterpart to the TCPA, the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) was originally formulated in 1995 by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Like the TCPA, the rule governs telemarketing practices, imposing requirements like honest disclosures, clear identification of the seller, and detailed information about the goods or services on offer. The TSR is also what establishes a consumer’s right to be placed on a company's internal Do Not Call list and outlines the penalties for deceptive and abusive telemarketing practices.

Beyond the TCPA, the FCC plays a pivotal role in overseeing and enforcing call center compliance. Relevant FCC rules cover a wide range of areas, including the use of auto-dialers, caller ID requirements, and the handling of emergency calls. Call centers must stay abreast of FCC guidelines and updates to existing rules to avoid legal pitfalls and to ensure they are providing a service that respects both the law and the customer’s rights.

This year, one particular FCC ruling can’t be overlooked. At the end of 2023, the FCC adopted rules that would close what they call the “Lead Generator Loophole,” which enabled lead generators and comparison shopping sites to obtain consumer consent to be contacted on behalf of many businesses at once with a single form submission.

The FCC updated rules are set to take effect in early 2025, and call centers previously reliant on these soon-to-be-outlawed third-party lead-generation practices urgently need to take action. Plus, within this ruling, the FCC also signaled that it may implement additional rules related to outbound texting—meaning call centers must remain watchful in the months ahead.

Call recording and monitoring are common practices in call centers for quality control and training purposes. However, obtaining explicit consent from customers before recording or monitoring calls is a legal requirement in many jurisdictions. This consent must be clearly communicated and documented, ensuring that customers are aware of and agree to these practices, thus safeguarding their privacy rights.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a comprehensive data protection law that impacts call centers dealing with the data of European Union citizens. GDPR mandates strict guidelines on data collection, processing, and storage, emphasizing the user's consent and the right to privacy.

As the first comprehensive privacy legislation of its kind, the GDPR may actually be more important to most call centers in the way it continues to serve as a model for other regulators. Shortly after the GDPR took effect in 2018, California became the first state to enact its own privacy law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Since then, a myriad of states have followed suit, passing privacy laws. The continued addition of these laws to states’ books means that call centers must also prioritize the compliant handling of sensitive customer data and more.

Outside of the regulations covered above, there are a range of laws and standards specific to certain industries that call centers must also stay on top of. Some of the most prominent of these include:

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to ensure that all companies processing, storing, or transmitting credit card information maintain a secure environment. For call centers handling financial transactions, adherence to PCI DSS is crucial.

The FDCPA is a key regulation for call centers involved in debt collection. It sets standards for ethical behavior, prohibiting practices like harassment, use of deceptive statements, and calling at inconvenient times. The FDCPA aims to ensure that debt collection efforts are conducted respectfully and legally, which is vital for maintaining consumer rights and trust.

For call centers operating in the healthcare, insurance, and Medicare sectors, compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) must be a central priority. HIPAA provides guidelines for protecting sensitive patient health information. Call centers must ensure that they have adequate safeguards in place to prevent unauthorized access to or disclosure of this information, maintaining confidentiality and integrity in all patient and policyholder interactions.

Complying with the multitude of rules and regulations that affect all aspects of call center operations is no simple task—but implementing these best practices can help you on your way to supporting both compliance and peak performance.

Developing a comprehensive compliance policy is the backbone of effective call center compliance management. This policy should encompass all the relevant regulations and laws, tailored to the specific needs of the call center. However, the complexity of creating policies that are up to the task means that call center leaders shouldn’t go it alone.

Enlist the help of expert legal counsel to audit your entire operation. This evaluation process will help identify areas of risk as well as the strategies to mitigate it. In the end, counsel will help you develop a compliance policy and a defensible position. The latter is particularly important as it shows regulators that you are putting your best foot forward in all things compliance, acting in good faith to handle sensitive customer information, manage interactions, and respond to any issues.

Remember though: your compliance policy should be a living document—something regularly reviewed and updated to reflect changes in legislation and industry best practices. In the meantime, it should serve as a reference point for all staff, ensuring that every team member understands their role in maintaining compliance.

Thorough training is a critical component of any call center compliance program. Without an understanding of the laws and scrutiny they’re subject to, call center agents can’t begin to support compliant behavior.

Build sessions on call center compliance into your initial agent onboarding and go over policies in great detail. However, don’t just recite information and expect agents to retain it; put compliance into practice with quizzes, role-playing, and engaging exercises that mimic real-life scenarios and drive home the importance of compliance.

Of course, compliance training can’t be a one-off event. Continual education is key to not just keeping agents on point but also building a culture of compliance.

As the regulatory landscape is ever-changing, call center leaders must stay abreast of changes and pass them on to their agents. Leverage regular training sessions, newsletters, and updates during team meetings to share critical updates to rules as well as policies and best practices.

This ongoing education process will reinforce the importance of compliance and ensure that all staff members are consistently aligned with current regulations and best practices.

When it comes to encouraging compliant customer conversations in sales and service, there’s no substitute for a well-crafted script.

Scripts should be carefully designed to include all necessary legal disclosures and to guide agents in handling various customer scenarios compliantly. Regularly reviewing and updating these scripts to align with current regulations and best practices is also vital.

Meanwhile, though, it’s important to note that, in 2024, scripts no longer need to be set down on paper and used by agents like cue cards. Today, technology is available to help agents stay on script and in compliance, while better adjusting to the complexities and dynamic nature of real-life conversations.

Dynamic scripting software not only loads scripts that can be personalized based on customer data from your CRM, but it also updates in real time as a customer or lead moves through a conversation. This way, your agents are always equipped with the language they need to support compliance as well as close more sales and provide more efficient service.

This last point underscores one of the most important call center compliance tips of all: without the right tools and technology, teams will struggle to keep up with the complexity and pace of compliance.

In reality, your call center software should be capable of serving as the linchpin of your compliance strategy, offering purpose-built compliance tools and integrations alongside automation and checks that help eliminate human error.

Ultimately, just like your legal counsel, your software provider should serve as a partner in your efforts to support compliance alongside positive results. Look for call center software that:

• Enables more comprehensive QA: The latest AI-powered quality assurance tools can help you monitor and analyze all of your calls, and identify non-compliant behavior in the process.

• Supports state-level compliance: With the rise of various state-level calling restrictions, software needs to be able to support compliant outreach and engagement across different jurisdictions.

• Accelerates list management and scrubbing: Make sure you’re only contacting the right customers with automated DNC and litigator scrubbing capabilities.

• Drives efficiency along the way: New compliance requirements don’t need to mean more hurdles for agents. Opt for software that supports call center automation and keeps things running smoothly.

• Possesses a record of compliance innovation: Not all software is created equally. Look for a provider with a consistent record of developing features that make supporting compliance easier.

Outbound contact centers need to be able to reach and convert customers at scale—and do so with compliance peace of mind. That’s why Convoso’s dialer is designed to deliver compliance support while driving maximum sales and lead generation performance.

With Convoso, the industry’s fastest, most powerful dialer comes with a full suite of call center compliance tools, including the only campaign management tool designed specifically to support compliance with state “Mini TCPA” laws.

Make the switch to Convoso’s automation- and AI-driven software to simplify the way you support compliance and streamline the growth of your call center. Sign up for a free demo today.

DISCLAIMER: The information on this page, and related links, is provided for general education purposes only and is not legal advice. Convoso does not guarantee the accuracy or appropriateness of this information to your situation. You are solely responsible for using Convoso’s services in a legally compliant way and should consult your legal counsel for compliance advice. Any quotes are solely the views of the quoted person and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Convoso.