A contact strategy is your business’s approach to how and when it contacts consumers.
We’ve detailed previously the questions you need to be able to answer when you look at your current strategy and whether or not to update it. But we’ll focus on whether or not you are using voicemails specifically to contact your consumers.
Voicemail messages fit under that contact strategy umbrella—in addition to texts, emails or direct mail—as one of the best methods of communicating with your consumers.
The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) debt collection rules, or Regulation F, added clarity and specific guidelines to what is acceptable behavior for collection agencies to stay compliant as they reach out to consumers.
The ruling details what is considered a “limited-content message,” which essentially means all the “information a debt collector must and may include in a voicemail message” for consumers so the message is still deemed not to be a communication under the FDCPA, and so it does not violate the prohibition against third-party communications.
A limited content message affects your contact strategy in a couple of ways.
If you use voicemail to reach out to consumers
If you use voicemail to reach your consumers, then your message must include the following criteria.
- A business name for the debt collector that does not indicate that the debt collector is in the debt collection business but not the name of the consumer
- A request that the consumer reply to the message
- The name or names of one or more natural persons whom the consumer can contact to reply to the debt collector
- A telephone number that the consumer can use to reply to the debt collector
- And, if delivered electronically, a disclosure explaining how the consumer can stop receiving messages through that medium
You can also include in your message a greeting, date and time of the message, a generic statement that the message relates to an account, and suggestions for time and dates to reply to the message.
Take this into account and plan accordingly
When you start to plan out your next voicemail campaign, you focus on the most effective ways to give your voicemail the greatest impact.
As you script out your voicemails and address the campaign pacing and tone of your voicemails, you also need to take into account what is required in your message to stay compliant.
Compliance in an ever-changing world
Compliance is an issue we take seriously, and now more than ever it’s important you make sure the messages you send to your consumers are safe, legal and 100% compliant.
We can partner with you to make sure you deliver your messages to consumers safely and compliantly. We can help you remove that burden from your shoulders.
Reach out to us if you need help updating your contact strategy, launching a voicemail campaign, or for more information about staying compliant in an ever-changing world.