Turn Down the Noise [When Customers Complain]

Explain to the Customer about Exemptions to the DNC

Have you heard of “customer noise?” In our industry, that usually means customer complaints. It occurs most frequently on outreach campaigns. At GCS, we take many precuations to avoid engaging someone who does not want to be contacted, but the situation does occasionally occur.

Many customer complaints are caused because of a misunderstanding of exemptions allowed under the National Do Not Call (DNC) registry.

What they fail to realize is there are exceptions to the DNC restrictions.

If they are an affiliate of a political party, a customer of a company or show any vested interest in an organization, they can be contacted because of their association with those groups.

At GCS, we listen carefully to their concerns.

“When a customer mentions they are on the National Do Not Call list, all of our call guides have client provided responses to help the customer understand why they are receiving the phone call. The DNC regulations have an exemption for contacting customers who have an existing relationship (the EBR or Existing Business Relationship exemption). If the customer has a current relationship with the institution, the institution is allowed to contact the customer as a part of this exemption. If there is no existing relationship, the customer would not be selected for calling or would be suppressed from calling if received as a part of a solicitation.”


Frank Camp


How do you accommodate a customer who is unhappy when they receive a call?

“The call guide responses explain to the customer that since they have an existing relationship with the institution, the institution is allowed to contact them with offers it feels might be of interest to them,” explains Frank. “There is a brief explanation in most call guides of how the Existing Business Relationship exemption works. In most cases this does diffuse any complaints or concerns the customer might have. If they still do not wish to be contacted, we can process a request to place them on the institution’s Do Not Call list so they won’t receive any further solicitation.”

Besides the DNC, we have ways to alleviate other types of customer noise, including:

  • Customer service issues with the institution: We provide customer service numbers for the institution in our call guides.
  • Too many calls: Contact rules are set by the client. We traditionally apologize and at most, try to offer the product/service we called them for.
  • Stop calling me: We record the customer request and place them on the institution’s Do Not Call List.

The best way to handle customer noise is to be empathetic, offer an apology and help the customer the best way you can. You can’t please every single person out there but you can leave a great impression that might lower the volume of the noise next time.


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