by Mandi Woodruff
The chance of a pesky telemarketer interrupting your evening dinner got a lot harder this week now that the FCC has approved stricter rules intended to block consumers from unwanted calls, reports Maya Jackson Randall at the Wall Street Journal.
Under the new rules targeting the computer-dialed or pre-recorded calls “robocalls,” telemarketers will have to receive prior written consent from the customer and must provide an opt-out mechanism during each call made.
This is a win for consumers who have lodged millions of complaints with the FCCabout the annoying robocalls. But with consumers so annoyed at these calls, we have to wonder how many of these calls were successful at gaining business in the first place. Our guess is not many.
Most legitimate companies have turned to using technology for more personal and humanized marketing approaches. Computerized marketing phone calls were the exact opposite.
From spreading guerrilla marketing videos on YouTube to direct contact with customers on social networking sites like Twitter, modern technology has allowed for far less annoying and intrusive ways to reach customers than old-fashioned marketing phone calls.
