CTPS [Corporate Telephone Preference Service] is having the biggest impact on direct marketing, more than anything else for a decade. With a national suppression file of near one million records of ‘by-law’, none-contactables by phone, the UK market is being artificially squeezed, killing off potential quality prospects from marketing databases. No telesales campaign can be run without the entire data source being run against the CTPS file, unless the contacts are your past customers already.

Yet it seems that the market is either totally unaware of this or are suffering from apathy. I can only put it down to B2B marketers not being as informed as they should be – and I do not think it’s their fault. Does nobody gives a monkey’s that at this rate, in five years time, we will not be able to contact any new prospects by phone. Ok, maybe that is a slight extension of the truth, but the fact remains, anybody in a company [from toilet cleaner to HR Director] can suppress their entire telephone network, and without being audited, without consulting their team or even superiors, and this is freezing up huge swathes of the market – especially now large corporates are wising up to the system and suppressing entire divisions of their global subsidiaries, and as a result, c.1m contacts have already signed up.

In short the CTPS was seen as the natural extension to the TPS, which has had its success. Lots of anachronisms, but the TPS gives homeowners the opportunity of suppressing their private numbers, so protecting themselves from nuisance calls - especially the automated pre-recorded calls stating “you’ve won a big fat prize, now call me back on my premium rated hotline and you could win a big fat apple” [and not the one that plays music]. The TPS seems to make sense.

Based on a European Directive [not law], the UK Government [in the form of the DTI] were the ONLY European Government to implement a scheme, run by the DMA, which gives companies the same opportunity to suppress their numbers. But is it the same principle as the TPS? Is it fair and whom is it trying to protect? … and it’s not the little old granny sitting at home!

The CTPS purports to protect the SME, especially the Small from the ME, from being distracted all day long by relentless, hard-nosed, telesales calls. The Federation of Small Businesses supported and also lobbied for the CTPS. However, nobody really looked at the reality of the situation.

SMEs are the largest users of the Telephonic Medium, using it to drive new business. Where do they get their leads? Need I say anymore than the words, ‘Yellow Pages’! Small businesses still rely on the Yellow Pages as well as other directories (including search engines), to research new prospects, then action with a telephone call. Now, with the implementation of the CTPS, this is all in fact illegal. If you do this now you are exposing yourself to a £5k fine. Why? Because, if one of the numbers in the yellow pages has been registered with the CTPS, you have flaunted the CTPS legislation. How to stay squeaky clean? Run the data-capture via the CTPS database first. However, this is obviously impracticable and expensive… as each time you run the list, you have to pay for the privilege.

Also, if the CTPS was set out to protect SMEs, why are corporates allowed to register themselves and on a grand scale? Who are they being protected from? Couple with the fact that large corporates have huge in-house databases, comprising of most of the market, which they have already sold to, means they are not as hampered by the CTPS as SMEs. Remember, you do not have to run lists of past customers through the CTPS.

Basically, SMEs were supposed to be the ones who were protected by the CTPS, but on the face of it, are actually the ones being penalised the most. This is nonsensical. I do not want to sound overly bitter about this, there is real potential for a CTPS scheme, but not in this format. It is creating an environment that is untenable and anti-competitive. Sadly, the Labour party has moved on to their next quick fix, as they do, and I cannot see any reviews of this legalisation for a long time coming. Maybe, if the market got a bit more involved in the debate, it would move things forward. But if the market continues to be as apathetic and misinformed as it is, it will take the reality of my ‘rumour mongering’ of a total suppression of all numbers in the UK to make people stand up and take notice.

On Tuesday 27 March B2B Marketing and Mardev held their 5th B2B Marketing Great Debate events on the subject of ‘Is the CTPS Working?’. The panel was made up of the DTI, DMA and other key stakeholders in this field. White paper to follow. Publishing April/MAy 07. Email joel.harrison@b2bm.biz for a copy.