The lead buyer industry is faced with an upcoming change: new FCC guidelines for one-to-one consent. While you may be familiar with the concept of “ping post,” the new guidelines introduce a third step, “pick,” which will allow consumers to give consent for further contact from specific companies instead of all interested parties.
Before you panic about how to comply with these updated rules, make sure you understand the “ping, pick, post” concept thoroughly. Only then can you explore dynamic solutions to the problem. You don’t have to scramble to keep up with your competitors if you act now.
1. Ping
A “ping” occurs when a consumer visits a comparison website and enters their information. This sends a “ping” to lead buyers who are interested in providing services to the consumer. These buyers must send back a bid, or price, that they are willing to pay for the lead’s contact information.
This part of the process is well known and has been in place for years. However, it requires the consumer to give multi-party consent upfront, meaning they must agree to be contacted by any of the potential lead buyers before they can even see who they are.
The conversation around privacy and security is shifting on an industry-wide basis. Consumers expect more protection than they did just five years ago, and this sort of multi-party consent is no longer thought to be good enough. Therefore, the FCC is proposing a new step to the process: “pick.”
2. Pick
As its name implies, the “pick” step allows a consumer to select which companies can have access to their contact information. These companies may be presented in a variety of formats, like a table sorted by price or a multi-select list of companies. It’s also possible that they will only be shown the highest bidder, depending on the comparison website they use.
The problem this presents for lead buyers is that it puts the responsibility for creating express written consent on them instead of on the lead sellers. Before, all possible buyers agreed to one blanket consent form that complied with TCPA guidelines, but now they will have to implement technology to account for dynamic, one-to-one consent instead.
3. Post
The final step of the process remains the same as before. Once a consumer consents to give their contact information to one or more companies, the lead seller will “post” their data to the selected entities for follow-up via phone call, email, or text message.
Remember that it is only at this point that a lead buyer receives actual contact information for the lead they bid on. Therefore, when these new rules go into effect, it is crucial that your company has technology in place to fulfill the needs of the “pick” consent requirement. If you don’t, you could miss out on leads that your competitors gain or even run into fines from the FCC for violating the new protocol.
4. No problem with Pipes.ai
Thankfully, there is already a dynamic solution available: Pipes.ai. This full-service, artificial intelligence software has a “pre-ping” capability built in. What this means is that lead sellers can incorporate your company into their TCPA-compliant consent language before they ever get to the “pick” step of the new process. In simple terms, it will continue to operate like the “ping post” method while still being compliant with the addition of “pick.”
If you’re a Pipes.ai customer, this feature is already a part of your package and comes at no additional cost to you. If you’re not already using our human-guided, lead-optimizing program to your company’s benefit, try our AI today and see the ways it could help your team remain compliant with all FCC guidelines while also maximizing sales.
