Welcome to the Research Assistant Weekly Newsletter - a subscriber-only resource for insight into emerging compliance challenges, details on peer calls, and links to new Research Assistant reports, documents, tools, and more.

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This week we received a question seeking to better understand the compliance risks and operational returns on utilizing a pre-recorded direct voicemail drop service. Our discussion proved to be very informative. Here are a few of the highlights: 

• The first thing to recognize is that pre-recorded voicemails are subject to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Meaning that if you do not have consent to leave pre-recorded messages then you run the risk of a TCPA lawsuit. 

• Another member mentioned that they invest in technology solutions to verify that the number they are calling is the intended recipient of the voicemail to mitigate potential risk when leaving a direct drop voicemail. 

• When using a direct drop voicemail it is also not advisable to use a limited-content message because of the requirement to leave a natural person’s name.

• From an operational perspective, one member stated that when strategically placing direct drop voicemails they see an 87% consumer re-engagement.

We can continue to discuss this issue in our weekly peer group calls as needed. Companies that are interested in leveraging this technology should ensure policies, procedures, controls, and testing are implemented prior to deploying.

Documents and Crowdsourced Materials:

• Handling Threats Against Collectors

• Handling Consumer Threats of Suicide

Top Reads: 

• Washington Court Sides with Hunstein Copycat; Rejects Main Industry Defenses

• Why Consumer Experience and Compliance Will Be Critical to Downturn Survival

Upcoming Webinars/ Other Announcements:

• Join us for Complete Guide to Risk and Gap Assessments Part 3: Performing Your Internal Examination; Capturing Results on July 14 at 2:00 ET

• Reminder: Send any topics or questions that you want to discuss to sara@insidearm.com by Thursday to ensure it makes it on our agenda!

• Are you attending the ACA Annual Convention & Expo July 20 – 22 in Orlando? If you are Sara Woggerman is booking her meetings now and would love to meet as a group or individually as time permits.  If you are interested please reach out to Sara at sara@insidearm.com