Research by Selectabase shows UK companies left exposed to unwanted cold calling

Selectabase analysed over 2 million businesses in one of its largest direct marketing databases to see which types of business were registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), the official scheme to prevent unwanted residential sales calls or its business counterpart, the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS).

The results show that out of nearly 100,000 registered limited companies, over 65,000 are registered with the TPS which only prevents them receiving residential sales calls, not business related calls.

Less than half this amount were actually registered correctly with the CTPS and so protected against receiving business to business cold calls.

The figures suggest that businesses are confused about which of the preference services they should be registered with – a situation which may not be helped by some of the complexities of the registration system for businesses.

For example any of the 65,000 limited companies registered with the TPS and based at a home address, will be protected from receiving residential sales calls at that number, but not necessarily business related sales calls.

Likewise, non limited companies are only protected from receiving sales and marketing calls if they are registered with the TPS, not the CTPS. Research into the Selectabase database showed that nearly 20,000 non limited businesses are therefore mistakenly registered with the CTPS.

Steven Sellwood of Selectabase commented on the findings of the research by expressing sympathy for those businesses which may be confused about which service to register with.

"Unfortunately there seem to be a substantial minority of businesses which may be incorrectly registered and so could receive sales calls they don't want to receive" said Sellwood.

"Furthermore, this makes life very difficult for our customers who try and act responsibly by screening their telemarketing lists against the appropriate preference service before calling other businesses, but who may not be getting the full picture" he added.

Selectabase are advising businesses that use the telephone for b2b sales or marketing campaigns, even to existing customers, to make sure they screen their lists against all the preference services – both TPS and CTPS, using tools like the Easycheck or 1check data cleansing tools which Selectabase provide at low cost.

In addition, to help clarify exactly what type of business should register with which type of preference service, Selectabase have provided extensive information on their website at http://www.selectabase.co.uk/articles/How_to_Register_with_the_TPS.aspx