A few minutes ago I received a call from one of the top Direct Selling Agents for one of the leading Indian multinational banks. The executive said, I have been chosen to have a lifetime free Gold Credit Card, as he must be aware I wasn’t all that thrilled.

After listening to his brief pitch, I said I already own the product he is proposing. Listening to this, he promptly apologized and wanted to know if I have any other financial/banking needs and went on with the pitch. As a joke, I said sure, help me open a joint savings account with ministry of finance – He agreed and will have someone to talk to me shortly

I have interacted with quite a few bright marketers in Retail Banking industry; they acknowledge these issues around privacy intrusion but are sort of handicapped to avoid them. In one of my dialogues, a manager talked about options that exist in their website to register for DND (Do Not Disturb) – Fair Enough! But trying to uphold your customer/prospect’s privacy does not end with just a registration form for such lists, it has to go beyond.

It is important for all you leading marketers to have organization and industry specific communication governance policies. Devise governance strategies in such a way, the framework aids you in reducing marketing costs and rev up returns from every campaign that you run, importantly upholding cusotmer’s privacy. Once devised, ensure no campaign list get generated without whetted by the governance framework.

Also educate all the product and marketing folk on the objective behind the framework and how it has to be used. Ensure the SLA you share with your contact center partner covers the framework’s role and if violated, the partner has righteous reason for any such violation. If not, let the penalty clause rule.

Today, I can, without thinking too much can list down a few marketers (organizations) whose call I will never encourage rather slam-down more often – Remember, its my job to see what the contact center folks do to build my case with such organizations, yet, I ignore. To cite an example, an life insurer has been after me since the last few weeks, despite of explaining a few times, I still receive calls – its beyond privacy intrusion, its insulting.

I also recommend an online poll booth where customers/prospects can send such call details – An approach to complement the communication governance policies. Basis this information polled, the contact center partner can be appropriately penalized (I assume, you as a marketer is interested in Value than Volume when it comes to generating sales leads)

Technology can play a significant role in communication governance policies like above, interested? Lets talk..