askSam and the Federal Do Not Call List

Telemarketing has become a trickery game for businesses with the revamping of the 1995 Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) on January 29, 2003 by the Federal Trade Commission. The intention of the TSR law is to protect consumers from unwanted or fraudulent telemarketing calls. This is now being enforced with the introduction of a "National Do Not Call List". Businesses are now prohibited, and can be fined, for contacting consumers who have put their names on this list (read more about the law at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/donotcall/index.html ). To date, more than 57 million phone numbers have been placed on the list.

The good news is you can use askSam to search this list quickly and protect your business by not contacting these people, and this tip will show you how.

According to the FTC Web site, they have prepared a fully-automated and secure Web site at:  

www.telemarketing.donotcall.gov to provide members of the telemarketing industry with access to the registry’s database of telephone numbers, sorted by area code.

The FTC is also offering free downloads of the list - by state, area code, etc. - to qualified telemarketers, others will have to pay. (To find out if you qualify or to read more about this service go to the do not call Web site or visit the "Accessing The Registry" FAQ at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/dncbizalrt.htm#access ).

Of course, thumbing through 57 million numbers before making a phone call is not the most efficient way to make sales calls. Plus, it's easy to miss a number in the list.

So, once you have downloaded your list you can import it into the askSam "Do Not Call" template. The askSam template is setup and ready to import your Do No Call lists into and even contains a  stored search that will allow you to enter a phone number and, within a matter of seconds, find out if that number does or does not appear in the list you downloaded. It's the perfect way to keep yourself safe and comply with the new TSR Law.

Importing Your Do Not Call List

1. Download your file from www.telemarketing.donotcall.gov  

2. Download the askSam Do Not Call template from - click here to download

3. In askSam choose FILE -> NEW and select the DO NOT CALL template. Click CREATE

4. Choose FILE -> IMPORT

5. In the FILES OF TYPE box choose TEXT DELIMITED (*.CSV)

6. Under LOOK IN browse and select the downloaded DO NOT CALL file

7. From IMPORT INTO ENTRY pull-down, choose the "Do Not Call Form"

8. Choose IMPORT

9. On Step 1 of 4 of the Import Wizard choose NEXT

10. On Step 2 of 4 of the Import Wizard choose NEXT

11. On Step 3 of 4 of the Import Wizard choose NEXT

12. On Step 4 of 4 of the Import Wizard choose FINISH

Note: Depending on the Do Not Call collection you selected this process could take 2-3 hours or more to import. For example the 850 area code I used as a sample had over 250,000 numbers and took over an hour to import

Searching Your Do Not Call Database

Once the information is imported into the database click on the "Click Here to Search for a Number" link on the front screen. Enter in a phone number and click OK. askSam will immediately show you the number if it is in the database or return a "No Matches Found" message if it is not.

Improving Your Search Speed

Note: askSam recommends use of the askSam Professional version for this size file. The sample file I used was the Do Not Call List for the 850 area code in Florida. It contained over 250,000 numbers and was more that 40 meg in size. The askSam Pro provides full text indexing making the searching of large files very fast. Search times mentioned in this article are for the Professional version only.

1. Once the import is complete choose FILE -> INDEX

2. Be sure the "INDEX SPECIFIC FIELDS" box says "DEFINED"

If not, click on the box and select the "P#[" from the FIELD pull-down box

3. Choose "INDEX FILE"

I hope you find the Do Not Call List Tip and Template helpful. Happy Telemarketing.

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