Reducing nuisance and silent calls - the Telephone Preference Service
On a personal level, I was aware of nuisance and silent calls; I get them at home and in the office and they can be irritating and disruptive. As a part of the telecoms industry, I’ve recently become more aware of how these calls cause others to react and the distress and annoyance they can cause.
What can you do to reduce these calls?
The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is a free service that can reduce the number of nuisance calls you receive. Any organisation, whether it’s for sales or for charity, must abide by the TPS lists, so not calling the numbers registered on it.
Organisations that you voluntarily give details to (when you purchase something or register for a service) will still be able to call you even if you’re registered with the TPS. They will need to give you the option to opt out of receiving marketing calls though. It’s becoming more common now when you’re signing up, that it’s an opt in, so by default you shouldn’t receive these calls.
To check if your number is already registered, you can dial the TPS registration line on 0845 070 0707 and select option 2. Alternatively you can e-mail your details (including telephone number) to tps@dma.org.uk for them to confirm for you.
What about for businesses?
From a business perspective, sole traders can register on the TPS. There is also the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS). This works on the same principals as the regular TPS. Consideration should be given however to whether it is beneficial for a business to completely block all sales calls. Are there potential leads or services that you could miss out on, if you’re blocking these calls?
What about TTNC numbers?
If you’ve got numbers with TTNC, you can register those with the TPS or CTPS. We supply a Call Blocking service of our own which enables you to manage lists of specific numbers you may want to block, or you could block entire ranges (e.g. all calls from 0844 numbers).
