For most people, regulatory compliance sounds about as exciting as doing your taxes. And this is actually a pretty good analogy, because compliance and taxes are both obligations that won’t go away if you ignore them.
According to a recent article in CIO Dive, being concerned about compliance is actually a good thing, because concerns about confidentiality and data security can seriously erode trust in your brand; nearly 80 percent of Internet users in the US now worry about privacy, and 84 percent worry about their data being hacked. So in a very real sense, your data quality should be an important part of your product marketing and customer service strategy.
But let’s take our initial analogy a step further. Tax software packages have largely automated the burden of doing your personal income taxes into a simple data entry exercise. In much the same way, Service Objects’ API capabilities can help you create automated processes that put much of the burden of compliance on autopilot. Let’s look at three specific areas where we can help.
TCPA. The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) requires businesses to protect consumers from unsolicited telephone marketing, particularly wireless users. Enforcement has increased and fines are steep, up to $1500 per call or text message. And since phone numbers change owners and line types constantly, you need an automated process to verify every phone contact for every phone-based marketing campaign, at both the time of data entry and the time of use.
Our DOTS GeoPhone Plus services can help keep you in compliance by verifying subscriber names against ones you have captured with valid consent, flagging the type of line (wireless, landline or VoIP), and providing a porting date so you can comply with TCPA’s 14-day deadline for incorporating changes. Learn more about our TCPA solutions here.
GDPR. If you do business with customers or prospects in the European Union (EU), their new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ushers in strict rules for the privacy, security, and data quality of individual consumer data as or, including clearly documented you have made every effort to keep y0uor contact data as up-to-date and accurate as possible. Fines for non-compliance can range up to €20M or 4% of annual turnover.
Article 5 of GDPR requires consumer data to be accurate, to avoid unsolicited marketing to incorrect contact information. Our address, lead and email validation capabilities can check and update your contact data, and we can also create a Certificate of Accuracy (COA) for each of your contact records to document compliance efforts. To learn how we can help you comply with GDPR Article 5, get a free GDPR Quality Assessment here.
Connect America. The federal Connect America Fund helps underwrite the build-out of voice and broadband capacity in rural areas, allowing eligible carriers who serve them to recover some of their costs from the federal Universal Service Fund. This requires documentation and verification of the locations to be served, including latitude and longitude.
Service Objects’ HUBB-compliant geolocation data can uncover more eligible locations and multi-unit sites at a fraction of the cost of physical surveys, and is guaranteed to be accepted by the FCC. Previous customers have reported discovering 20-50% more eligible locations using our capabilities, including getting funding for multiple units at a single location. To learn more about our capabilities to support Connect America, visit this page.
Here is a closing thought. As we mentioned at the beginning of this blog, few people get excited about compliance efforts. But we do! And we think that you should too. Why? Because many of these regulatory efforts are hallmarks of a new era in marketing, away from interruptive marketing and towards a new era of authentic customer engagement. We feel that organizations who take the lead in this direction will not only avoid non-compliance penalties, but succeed much better in the marketplace of the 21st century. It is an exciting time full of opportunity – and we can help you get there.
