Telecoms Compliance for Legal Marketing – Personal Injury Marketing Minute 48

Marketing in the legal world is all about finding new and creative ways to let prospective clients know that you are there to help when they need you. You can do this through your website, billboards, TV commercials, and through the good old-fashioned telephone.

While many industries can be infinitely creative in their marketing approaches, lawyers are limited by a considerable number of regulations that limit what they can and cannot say and do.

Joining us today is Mark Saccente of Smart Carrier to discuss compliance regulations in telecom marketing.

Visit Mark online here: www.smartcarrier.io/bios/mark-saccente-jr/.

See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/.

 

Transcript:

Lindsey:

Welcome to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute where we quickly cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world. I’m your host, Lindsey Busfield.

Marketing in the legal world is all about finding new and creative ways to let prospective clients know that you are there to help when they need you. You can do this through your website, billboards, TV commercials and through the good old-fashioned telephone. While many industries can be infinitely creative in their marketing approaches, lawyers are limited by a considerable number of regulations that limit what they can and cannot say and do. Joining us today is Mark Saccente of Smart Carrier to discuss compliance regulations in telecom marketing. Thank you so much for joining us, Mark.

Mark:

Thank you for having me.

About Mark Saccente of Smart Carrier

Lindsey:

Well, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background with telecom regulations.

Mark:

Sure. So I am third generation telecommunication industry. What that means is my grandfather set up the poles, my father sold the services between the poles, and I am here now doing everything in between. I got started specifically with telecommunications as my primary industry right out of college, went to Florida State four years, and I just fell into it with the family business. My father worked for a company called MCI WorldCom, which is now technically Verizon. And growing up, he was on the phone 24/7, so I had almost like an osmosis where just naturally, I’m in the car with him, I’m hearing him speak. So about eight years old, I could sell a T1 or a PRI, and it just carried with me and it was pretty much destined that I was going to eventually fall into telecommunications one way or another. Yeah. So it comes with the territory.

And specifically how I got into the compliance part was in around 2013, I was working for a company that sells tandem interconnections, which is basically doing a partnership with other carriers, saying, “Hey, you have this area code. We have this area code. Let’s work together.” And it’s tandem interconnections, but there was a service that was brand new at the time called short duration. And what that means is what is modern day robocall or a short call, there’s the call where you call grandma and that’s minutes and hours potentially, and then there’s the telemarketing, “Hey, this is Johnny. I’m going to sell you a phone book.” That was relatively new at the time, and the company wanted to get in on it. So it took a lot of … We had counsel and lawyers and we created some groundworks that we still use today in the industry. That’s essentially how I got into the compliance regulation part of it.

Lindsey:

So it sounds like your family was really at the forefront of laying the foundation for telecommunications. And of course, any marketing strategy that people can use to help connect businesses with clients, anything that’s new and innovative and hasn’t been saturated, people are going to want to get ahold of.

Mark:

Yeah.

Lindsey:

And naturally, when that happens, there are regulations that have to pop up to protect consumers. And lately, we’ve been hearing a lot about TCPA, but what is the TCPA Act and what do lawyers need to do and know as they are building marketing campaigns?

What Personal Injury Lawyers Need to Know About TCPA

Mark:

Yeah. So TCPA at its core, it’s all about protecting the consumer. So before we had all these cellphones and everybody had a landline, even before that, it was a free for all. It actually came because you would be sitting at the dinner table with your family before 1991, and you would get a call at, god knows what time, 9:30 at night, and the person on the other line would want to sell you windows, whatever they would sell in the ’90s, and there was no regulation for that. There was nothing saying, hey, you can’t do that.

So the TCPA, it’s basically the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, reined that all in and said, okay, well, we’re going to create this set of rules and regulations for what you can and cannot telemarket. So it was after that then they said, okay, you cannot call the consumer after 9 PM or you cannot set over 10 calls a day to the same number. It all comes into just giving guidelines for what you can and cannot telemarket essentially.

Lindsey:

That’s really helpful to know. And of course, as lawyers are starting to build out their marketing campaigns, they need to understand what these regulations say. That way, as they are thinking through the logistics, they are in line and not getting sued for violating TCPA. And lawyers and legal marketers continually strive to find creative ways to get in touch with new clients and find ways to keep previous clients in contact. However, simply picking up the phone and calling somebody can be tricky.

TCPA Phone Regulations for Lawyers

So what regulations should lawyers keep in mind prior to picking up the phone and just calling someone?

Mark:

Yeah. So there’s some obvious ones that right off the bat, you have to understand. There’s a lot that goes into this. It’s not like, hey, you have to read the entire book, but at the same time, there’s nuanced ones. For example, it’s called the four-ring policy. If you’re calling somebody, you’re either allowed 15 seconds or four rings, then you have to hang up and abandon, we call it abandon the call. Not everybody knows that. So say you’re waiting on that line, seven rings, that’s a potential violation. It comes down to things almost as nuance as a residential subscriber, we all know you can’t call them, it starts at 8 AM, you can’t call before 8 AM and after 9 PM, but there’s certain exceptions to that. You give permission and a specific time.

So it really is navigating this type of, okay, what can I do? What do I have permission to do? And then on top of everything else, they have something called a do not call list, which is a registry of anybody can go to do not call, the registry, which is just a website, putting your number. Immediately, you cannot solicit that number unless you have permission. So really, you have to know exactly where you fall under these guidelines and what you can do. And prior to that is knowing these rules and just reading the TCPA guidelines that they give you through government outlets basically.

Lindsey:

And so these regulations do still apply even if you have an existing relationship with the client. Correct?

Mark:

Yes, exactly. Of course, you call your client at 11 PM, and no matter if you have permission or not, they’re not going to be happy.

Lindsey:

Right.

Mark:

So yeah, a lot of these almost fall into common sense like you don’t want to wake somebody up, things like that, but most importantly is having permission to call. That’s the big one. Cold calling and just picking up the phone and dialing, it doesn’t work, especially in this modern day with all the nuance, the nuisance calls and the bad actors. You can’t just do it like that. You need to have a verbal agreement, some client saying, “Hey, you can contact me.” Where you get that source from could be multiple. There’s data brokers, there’s lead brokers, but as long as you have that permission, you are able to call. But again, you want to apply common sense to your dialing.

TCPA Texting Regulations

Lindsey:

Right. And again, going back to what you’re saying in this day and age, cold calling is not going to lead to anything good for anybody. But one of the new things, when I say new, 2000s and on, is text messaging, and texting platforms have become increasingly popular over the past several years. So what regulations apply to text messaging and what do lawyers need to be mindful of before sending out a mass text or trying to get in touch with somebody just one-on-one through text?

Mark:

So text messaging has, over the course of I would say since the pandemic, become the most regulated of the communication industry, simply because of its mass ability to contact multiple people in a short amount of time. I would say the thing you have to take into consideration is having opt-in data to text the person and then what are you texting them? So a lot of carriers that you text, you have to have a carrier to send a text message, just similar to your cellphone, a lot of those carriers, they want to have the information. In fact, in some cases, to even get a mass text approved, you have to send them the exact list of what you’re saying. So it says you want to sell it’s personal injury, for example. You need to get approved the actual writing of what you’re texting, how you’re texting it, and the format of what you’re using to text because it’s become so strict.

So it really comes down to what you’re texting and who you’re texting that said, “Text me.” You cannot just simply send mass texts to whoever you want. That’s a TCPA violation waiting to happen because the proof is on the phone. It’s easy.

Lindsey:

Right, right.

Mark:

Yeah.

Privacy Regulations for Lawyer-Client Communications

Lindsey:

Yeah, no, that is so clearly traceable. And when it comes to, especially if you’re using a mass text and you have lots of people’s phone numbers that may or may not be visible, that could be a privacy headache. There are obviously privacy regulations in place to protect those that you are communicating with. But what kind of privacy regulations do lawyers need to uphold when calling or texting prospective or existing or former clients?

Mark:

Yeah. So your privacy protections are going to vary state to state. It’s not black and white. For example, California has a much different Consumer Privacy Protection Act than, say, rural Nebraska, whatever the state is. The primary thing to always keep in mind is third-party information is sacred. So any business I speak to, I always like to have a privacy policy in place. Meaning, you will state to whoever you’re calling, you are not going to be selling your information, your private anything basically that you have, unless specifically you give permission to.

The permission again could be something as simple as verbal permission or they have incentives. You tell us about yourself, get a $5 gift card, whatever that may be. But you will have to sit here and have a document or some kind of thing that says, “Hey, your information may be going to our parent company, for example, but we need permission.” So it all comes down to, again, just understanding the privacy policies in your state and making a guideline. So you have something called opt-in data, which is the ability to say, okay, this client is okay with me sharing the information. Here’s my opt-in clause or my opt-in reasoning, and you have that ready in case a TCPA lawyer comes and comes knocking.

TCPA Violation Penalties

Lindsey:

Right. Or else, you could be in some really, really hot water because of the penalties, from what I’ve heard, are incredibly steep when it comes to TCPA violations.

Mark:

Oh yeah.

Lindsey:

Can you give us some examples of those?

Mark:

Yeah, sure. The big one, they’ll threaten $5,000 per violation. It’s what they can get. There’s a whole industry out here of lawyers who enforce that’s their job, is to go and to find the violations. You contact them and they get you paid. That whole robocall, give me the number thing, people make a living out of it, rightfully so. There’s a difference between a mistake, an accident software gets messed up all the time. That could be proven. The penalty for that is much different than the bad actors who are going and knowingly violating the policies and doing this to make a profit. That policy can be … There’s $250 million penalties with a company that just violated the do not call list. So it’s not us …

They’re making a statement now, the FCC. They’re not playing around and you have to be compliant. You have to know this. It’s no longer the, “I didn’t know.” This is something that as a business today, if you’re going to call consumers, you have to be aware of. And that’s what I want to stress, is there’s no more ignorance in this. You have to know these rules,

Lindsey:

Right. It’s been around since 1991. It’s time to get on board.

Mark:

Exactly.

How to Avoid Being Labeled a SPAM Caller

Lindsey:

But even when lawyers are doing everything right, they might still pop up as a spam caller. What is this and how can they avoid that?

Mark:

So the spam caller is again something that is meant to protect the consumer. So if you get a call on your cellphone and it says spam or spam likely, that’s so you as a consumer can be a little bit more hesitant with that call. And 90% of the time, they just simply don’t answer it, which is damaging to the company if it’s a false spam tag. In some cases, they are a scammer. They’re a scammer on the other line and you just saved yourself the trouble. So there’s a very thin line you have to walk there.

So you want to make sure the best you can, that you avoid that spam tag. However, this is the big thing, is you could do everything right. You can follow every TCPA law and still get that tag. There is no magic bullet to guarantee you won’t get that tag. What I tell everybody is there’s something called spoofing, and the act of call spoofing is a bad actor in India, may take your phone number, your business number. Let’s just say you’re a local credit union. They could theoretically put that phone number of your business in their auto-dialer and dial out hundreds of thousands of calls with your telephone number. So on your cellphone, you’ll see the business name, you’ll see the phone ID, but it’s the fraudster, it’s an imposter. That will also get your business a spam likely tag. It’s unfortunate, but it happens.

You could be preventative, but at the end of the day, you want to identify the spam tag and then you can get it resolved by dialing with a new number, for example. Our company, Smart Carrier, has a host of different services that do just that. We monitor your phone number theoretically, and we have the ability to detect if the number is coming up as spam likely and we can alert you. With that information, you could dial with a new number. But it all comes down to making sure that if you’re doing stuff right, we’re going to help you. We’re going to have your back as much as we can.

Lindsey:

Right. And that’s so helpful, especially when you guys are so well-versed in the compliance regulations and you understand the workarounds and the solutions to this problem because you don’t want to be a lawyer trying to get in touch with a client and have them not returning your call or not answering the phone when you have an important update to give them. You can’t leave a voicemail with the information because it’s protected information. So not having the spam tag on your phone number as a personal injury lawyer is absolutely critical.

Well, if listeners have any additional questions about telecom compliance or Smart Carrier or making sure that their number is protected from a spam tag, how can they get in touch?

Mark:

Sure. You can send us an email at help@smartcarrier.io or you can contact me directly, which is mark@smartcarrier.io. You can go to our website, which is smartcarrier.io. Once we get your either email or even you can call on the numbers on the website, we’ll reach out to you and we’ll get an address. We have a very strict, as we call it, a know your customer form. It’s not meant to intimidate. It’s simply meant to identify who you are because like anything else, any power that comes with compliance, fraudsters try to use it and abuse it.

So obviously, we want to make sure you’re in the United States. We want to make sure we know who you are and just simple basic due diligence we call it in the industry. But most of the United States’ cases are totally fine and we can help you. So this is definitely … We have a new product, Smart Caller iD, which is going to brand your phone and also eliminate somebody spoofing your call simply by the fact that it will show your company logo. STIR/SHAKEN is there. STIR/SHAKEN is an identity header that specifically gives a check mark, verifying you are who you say you are, which is, in another podcast, we can go over. But at the end of the day, your customer will have trust that you are the person calling, is what we pretty much set out to do.

Lindsey:

Wow. What a really cool asset. Well, we will be sure to put all of your contact information and website information in the comment section of the podcast, but thank you so much for sharing all of this with us today.

Mark:

Thank you. It was a pleasure being on.