Cellphone Use on the Rise: Could Affect the Way You Do Business

At work, we all have a desk phone at the least, maybe a company-issued cellphone and maybe you give your personal cell number to select clients too. If someone wants to reach out to you, they typically have more than one way to do so and the chances of getting you on the line are decent. But, when you go home for the day, what are you using as your primary source of communication?

According to a new study released by the U.S. government, the majority of people are solely dependent on their cellphones at home. Out of 19,956 households, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey contacted, 50.8 percent of households only had a cellphone in service in the later part of 2016. That was followed by 45.9% of households who use landlines and the remaining 3% or so had no service at all. Between the folks using cellphones and landlines, 39% of them use both at home.

As the population migrates exclusively to cell usage, landlines are slowly becoming less relevant and consumers are becoming harder to reach. Combine this behavior with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), prohibiting businesses from reaching consumers on their cell phone businesses are struggling to continue to do business as always. The TCPA may not only subject you and your business to hefty regulatory fines but open your organization up to the significant risk of a debilitating class action suit.

Under the TCPA, cellphones are off-limits to anyone using an Automatic Telephone Dialing System or ATDS unless that company gets express written consent from a consumer that explicitly gives permission to contact that particular consumer, on their cellphone, using the specified dialing technology, which can be tough to do. If a company were to violate this, the fines range from $500 to $1,5000 per illegal call and subject you to even more costly private suits. This is why it is imperative to make sure your reps are using a system that is in compliance with the law, so cellphones and the number of people you are able to market to are not limited. Gryphon Networks offers a non-ATDS dialing technology that allows you to contact consumers on their cellphones without express written consent while remaining fully compliant with the federal TCPA, TSR, and vary state do-not-call laws.

If the younger generations’ behaviors are predictive of what the future holds, fewer and fewer people are going to use landlines, which means that lifeline for marketers and their consumers will be obsolete. Prepare now; invest in a dialing platform fit for the future.