Recap of Regulation F

While Regulation F has been around for a little while now, many call centers are still struggling with keeping their contacting compliant. Some compliance issues stem from growing complacent and comfortable while others occur because solutions are not in place to mitigate compliance risks. Here are the top things to remember about Reg F and some ways to keep your call center compliant.

What should I know about Reg F?

The main purpose of Regulation F is to clarify specific rules for contacting consumers, retaining compliance records and managing your consent.

One clarification that call centers often struggle with is the model validation notice. This provides a guideline for what a notice must include to be valid and remain within contacting parameters.

Reg F also specifies limitations on contacting via calls, emails and SMS. Limited content messages are at the center of the contacting limitations. To qualify as a limited-content message, a voicemail must include: 

• The phone number that the consumer can use to reply to the debt collector
• The name of a person whom they can contact to reply to the debt collector
• A business name for the debt collector that does not indicate that the caller is in the debt collection business
• A request for the consumer to reply to the message
  

While these four things must be included in a limited contact message, collection agents may also choose to include the date and time of the message, a suggested day and time for the consumer to respond to the message, a salutation and a statement that if they do reply, they may speak with any of the company’s representatives.

What can I do to stay compliant?

There is a lot to think about when it comes to compliance, but with Reg F, you need to make sure to perfect your validation notice and train your agents in the proper form of communication. 

When sending a validation notice, the trickiest sections that most agencies are likely to mess up are the expiration and itemization dates, as well as the improper use of the safe harbor defense. Focusing on your validation notices and ensuring that they contain all of the necessary elements will help your overall compliance. While you can take action against other individual compliance concerns, The easiest way to handle your other compliance concerns is by implementing comprehensive compliance solutions that were specifically designed to handle any risk thrown at you.

TCN’s solutions to Reg F

TCN offers a comprehensive compliance suite that streamlines your call center compliance to protect you and your customers by minimizing risk. 

TCN’s compliance lineup:

• List Management Service
• Natural Language Compliance
• Performance Analytics
• Voice Analytics

List Management Services allows call centers to automate not only the preparation but scheduling of data lists. Instead of taking individual scattered data sets and compiling them slowly by hand, call centers are able to process, filter, scrub and sort all data files in one place.

Call centers can build and manage compliance rules through Natural Language Compliance, an intuitive and user-friendly solution. Managers are able to write, automate and audit compliance rules to mitigate risk as new rules and regulations are established. This allows you to write custom rules that fit any campaign you are undertaking.

Don’t miss a single metric with Performance Analytics and Reporting. With intelligent reporting, call centers have the information needed for time-sensitive decisions through forecasting and instant reporting. These detailed reports can provide information regarding compliance concerns and give you the crucial time you need to resolve the issue before it escalates.

When call centers implement Voice Analytics, they add an additional layer of compliance security by recording and scrubbing every call made by agents. This process flags specified words and phrases set by you to give peace of mind.

Even though Reg F has been around for a while now, call centers can never be too careful when it comes to compliance, as that could be the difference between a successful or failed business. Request a demo to learn more about TCN’s compliance solutions and how to stay ahead of Regulation F.