The Importance of TCPA Compliance for Call Centers in 2025
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) continues to be one of the most critical regulations governing call center operations. With increasing fines and evolving compliance requirements, businesses must stay ahead to avoid costly penalties and maintain consumer trust. In this blog, we’ll explore the key aspects of TCPA compliance, best practices for adherence, and how CallShaper’s advanced technology can support call centers in meeting regulatory standards. Understanding TCPA Regulations The TCPA, enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), sets strict guidelines on telemarketing calls, auto-dialers, prerecorded messages, and SMS marketing. Some of the most important TCPA compliance requirements include: [...]
Navigating the Evolving Landscape of Call Center Compliance: Key Updates as of February 16, 2025
Overturning of the FCC's One-to-One Consent Rule The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) initially enforced the one-to-one consent rule, which required businesses to obtain explicit, individual consent from consumers for each entity intending to make contact. However, this rule has since been overturned, allowing businesses to continue using broader consent agreements, provided they remain transparent and compliant with other applicable regulations such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Despite this reversal, call centers should still prioritize clear and well-documented consent practices to mitigate risks and maintain consumer trust. Enhanced Consumer Rights for Consent Revocation Effective April 11, 2025, consumers have [...]
Why Your Telephone Answering Service Should Be Cloud-Based
If your small business isn’t growing as quickly as you’d like, your marketing efforts aren’t delivering results, or your operations feel disorganized, the missing piece might be a telephone answering service (TAS). A TAS ensures that every customer call is answered professionally, messages are taken accurately, and customer support is available even when you can’t be. The right TAS can help you attract new customers, retain existing ones, and streamline your daily operations. The Key to a Modern TAS: The Cloud Not all telephone answering services are created equal. To maximize efficiency and flexibility, your TAS should be cloud-based. But [...]
Understanding the Requirements for Using the Reassigned Numbers Database (RND)
What Is the Reassigned Numbers Database (RND)? The Reassigned Numbers Database (RND) was established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to help businesses and organizations avoid calling or texting numbers that have been reassigned to new users. This database helps mitigate unwanted communications and potential violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by allowing businesses to verify whether a phone number has been reassigned before attempting to contact a consumer FCC, 2021 https://www.fcc.gov/reassigned-numbers-database. Failure to comply with TCPA regulations can result in significant penalties, making it essential for businesses engaged in outbound calling and messaging to understand and adhere [...]
3 Ways to Reduce Your Call Center’s Abandonment Rate
If you operate an inbound call center, abandoned calls are inevitable. Even with highly trained agents and a well-structured IVR system, some callers will hang up before reaching an agent due to circumstances beyond your control. However, you can implement strategies to minimize abandonment rates and improve customer experience. Here are three effective ways to keep callers on the line. 1. Increase Agent Availability One of the simplest ways to lower abandonment rates is to ensure you have enough agents to handle incoming calls. If budget allows, hiring additional staff can significantly reduce wait times, increasing the likelihood that callers [...]
What to Look for in the Best Telephone Answering Service Software
Telephone answering services have always played an important role for small businesses and large corporations alike. Put simply, no one is available at all hours of the day to speak to customers and catalog and respond to inquiries. For those hours during which customers expect to be able to speak to someone but people from the company aren’t available (yes, everyone does need to eat lunch at some point), telephone answering service (TAS) representatives are there. Whether they are simply taking messages and passing them along or performing basic tasks like confirming appointments or sending reminders or follow-ups, TAS [...]
Spotlight on Our Game-Changing Partners
At CallShaper, we are proud to collaborate with innovative businesses that are transforming the call center industry. Our partners share our commitment to helping call centers operate more efficiently while ensuring exceptional customer experiences. Here, we’re spotlighting a few of our partners and how they enhance your call center operations. ActiveProspect ActiveProspect is a SaaS platform designed to streamline customer acquisition through consent-based marketing. Their tools enable businesses to take actionable steps with leads, collect valuable data, and save money—all while documenting proof of consent. This safeguards companies from litigation and fraud while offering insights to refine marketing strategies. For [...]
Inside the World of Dispatch Call Centers
Not all inbound call centers are focused on traditional customer service. Some, like dispatch call centers, play a more specialized role in transferring information and coordinating actions. Let’s explore the various types of dispatch services and the vital functions they serve. What is a Dispatch Call Center? Dispatch call centers operate as intermediaries, sending information or coordinating services with speed and efficiency. Depending on the industry, their responsibilities can vary: Customer-to-Business Dispatch These centers handle calls from customers, collect key information, and transfer the caller to the appropriate department or team. Often outsourced, these centers act as a bridge between [...]
How to Set Effective Goals with the SMART Framework
Setting goals is essential for keeping your inbound call center agents motivated and focused. But it’s not just about having goals; it’s about setting the right goals. Using the SMART framework ensures your goals are clear, actionable, and effective. Let’s break it down: Specific Goals must be clear and precise. Vague goals can leave agents confused and unmotivated. Example of a vague goal: "Customers should be satisfied at the end of a call." SMART version: "Agents should strive for first call resolution." Measurable Goals need to have quantifiable benchmarks to track progress and success. Refined goal: "Agents should aim to [...]
Why the Right Technology is Crucial for Attracting New Clients
Gaining new clients requires a combination of strategies: using marketing and advertising that resonate with your target audience, placing those ads in the right channels, offering unique products or services, and ensuring your pricing is both competitive and justified. While these front-facing factors are essential, the behind-the-scenes aspects are just as critical. Seamless processes, accessible customer support, and the right technology can significantly impact your ability to attract and retain clients. In today’s world, nearly every business relies on technology to streamline operations. Whether it's processing sales, managing customer information, or facilitating communication, the right tools can make or break [...]
4 Effective Ways to Minimize Customer Complaints
Customer complaints are an inevitable part of the inbound call center business. Even with exceptional service, external factors like a customer’s mood or an inability to fully resolve their issue can lead to dissatisfaction. While eliminating complaints entirely isn’t realistic, there are proven strategies to significantly reduce their frequency and impact. Here are four key approaches to achieve that goal: 1. Enhance Agent Training A long wait time is frustrating enough, but it’s even worse when a customer finally connects with an agent only to be transferred due to a lack of knowledge or authority. Empowering your agents through [...]
5 Most Important Call Center Agent Skills
Whether you are running an inbound or an outbound call center, your agents need to learn and cultivate certain skills to ensure successful interactions with customers. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to sell a product, troubleshoot a problem or update a client account—without the right skills, customers will be left feeling uncertain, frustrated, or unhappy with their experience. Here are five of the most important skills call center agents need. Active Listening Everybody knows that call center agents are working from a script. By now, customers can tell if an agent is reading a pre-written message and/or following [...]
Why CallShaper is the Key to Maximizing Your Ad Spend
While there are certainly times when we wish it wasn’t the case, budgets rule all in business. The money you spend on something needs to directly translate into returns and profits or it may be deemed not worth the same investment in the future. This is truer when it comes to advertising budgets than almost anywhere else. If you can’t draw a direct line from the money you are spending on advertisements to the sales that are being made as a result, you run the risk of a shrinking ad budget. When we talk about call centers and ad [...]
4 Strategies to Enhance Virtual Training for Call Centers
With more call center agents working from home—whether part-time or full-time—virtual training needs to be as thorough, engaging, and effective as traditional, in-person sessions. Quality virtual training not only ensures top-notch customer service but also significantly reduces agent turnover. Here are four strategies to improve your virtual training and set your agents up for success. 1. Start with Technology Training Not everyone is fully comfortable with videoconferencing tools like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, even though remote work has become more common. Before diving into your core training, consider offering a brief tutorial on the specific platforms and tools agents [...]
Why Contact Center Metrics Have Changed to Center the Customer
Metrics have always been an incredibly important part of every contact center. Without them, there is no way to conduct quality assurance or evaluate the performance of your agents. But in recent years, the key metrics used to measure and judge the success and effectiveness of a call center have changed. Here, we’re outlining how and why. In the past, efficiency was the name of the game for call centers. The faster they could answer calls and the faster they could wrap them up, the better. The metrics used to measure efficiency included things like Average Handle Time, Hold [...]