What You Need to Know About Florida’s New Telemarketing Restrictions
Effective July 1, companies must comply with strict new telemarketing regulations when contacting customers and prospects in Florida. The good news is the new restrictions don’t affect contact with Florida customers who’ve given prior express consent. The bad news is the restrictions do affect the EBR group for landlines and even live mobile calls.
It’s important to understand how unprecedented and far-reaching these restrictions are. Our New York City-based legal counsel advised us that the definition of auto dial in the Florida bill is the broadest yet and even includes saved numbers on a mobile phone that a salesperson uses to place a live call. Salespeople calling from any digital phone are included in the legislation’s definition of telemarketing.
So, what do you need to do? We recommend having your company’s legal counsel review the text of the bill and then discuss it with your sales and operations leadership team. As far as we know, there is no specific guidance that defines exceptions to the law at this point.
Advocacy groups are challenging the changes to the Florida Do-Not Call Act and Florida Telemarketing Act on the basis that the new rules are more restrictive than FCC guidelines. At least two class action suits are in progress. In the meantime, it’s also important to be aware that other state legislatures may take similar measures, so companies need to prepare by obtaining prior express consent at every opportunity.
The good news is that it is easy to get started, and SPLICE offers full Opt- In Management to get you started. You can start collecting express consent now with ROCC™ or Direct Connect™ and if you are a Salesforce user, you can automate the process of obtaining consent by adding an opt-in feature from AppExchange to all workflows. This automated opt-in function is available on Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. An automated opt-in function for your workflow is also available via a custom set-up on Marketing Cloud. Do you use HubSpot? No problem, we got you covered there too. Don’t use either? Our app also works independently and is integration-ready!
The changes to Florida’s telemarketing laws are a challenge, and it’s possible that other states will follow suit. But there’s also an opportunity for companies that act quickly to secure opt-ins for ongoing contact. As the proverb says, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.” The same is true of opt-in efforts — now is the time.
