Pulling the plug: association predicts new U.S. registry could kill up to two million jobs in the call centre industry.

• Author: Ross, Ian

For some people, telemarketers represent an unwanted dinner time intrusion. But to others, it represents a source of primary or supplemental income in an otherwise slack job environment.

While it is too early to determine what impact a U.S. do-not-call registry, slated to take effect this fall, will have on the thousands of telemarketers, customer service representatives and technicians in the Northern Ontario call centre industry, one industry group expresses "sufficient concern" for both outbound and inbound Canadian operators.

"The immediate impact is for outbound operators with calls to the U.S.," says Scott Rennie, a Sudbury-based spokesman for the Customer Contact Strategy Forum, a council of 250 senior executives with inbound-call capabilities in the financial, insurance, telephone and telecommunications sector. But the registry may have a negative impact on inbound Canadian operators as well, he says.

According to tougher regulations set up by the U.S. Federation Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), telemarketers who call registered households on the do-not-call list on or after Oct. 1 could face fines of up to $11,000 (US) a call. Consumers will also have the option to sue telemarketers directly for up to $500 a call.

The government-run do-not-call database is designed to block unsolicited telephone sales calls.

Under FCC/FTC rules, telemarketing companies must have an established business relationship like a service contract with a client company, which allows them to contact a customer up to 18 months after a business transaction and three months after an inquiry or application.

Other organizations such as political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors and insurance businesses will be exempt from the registry.

Rennie says while the registry rules remain "fuzzy," his group's interpretation is that customer service practices of up-selling and cross-selling on packages like insurance services can, by definition, be categorized as an outbound call.

"Once you've gone from the initial intention of why the customer was calling in to now selling them something different ... that now becomes an outbound call by definition of the FCC/FTC on this registry.

"The line between sales and service is being blurred."

Rennie says Canadian telemarketing firms are not necessarily shielded from this registry since the U.S. government will go after an American parent company or the company the telemarketer is...