Ofcom makes changes to telemarketing rules

Ofcom has ruled that businesses using automatic dialling machines to make cold calls to several homes at once can wait until the person answering finishes speaking before counting down a two-second limit on the time it takes a handler to pick up the call.

Previously, companies needed to respond to an answered phone within two seconds. Call-centre staff found that in this time they were sometimes unable to determine whether the call had been picked up by a person or an answering machine.

Rules also stipulate that abandoned calls must not account for more than 3% of all calls made in the space of 24 hours.

Campaigners against telemarketing have called the decision a loosening of the rules.

According to Ofcom, 3bn telemarketing calls are received each year in the UK. Consumers receive 1.2bn silent calls a year.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk