Telemarketing Sales Rule

The TSR (Telemarketing Sales Rule) is a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulation that governs telemarketing practices in the United States. While the TCPA is enforced by the FCC and focuses on the technology of calling, the TSR is enforced by the FTC and focuses on the business practices of telemarketing — including disclosure requirements, prohibited practices, DNC compliance, and the 3% abandon rate limit that directly affects VICIdial dialer configuration.

How It Works in VICIdial

The TSR’s abandon rate provision (also called the “call abandonment safe harbor”) allows no more than 3% of answered calls to be abandoned over a 30-day measuring period. This is the same threshold enforced by the FCC, and VICIdial’s abandon rate target and adaptive dialing features are designed to maintain compliance with this limit.

The TSR also requires that abandoned calls play a recorded message (the safe harbor message) that identifies the seller, provides a phone number, and states that the call is for telemarketing purposes. VICIdial’s drop action setting must be configured to deliver this message.

Additional TSR requirements include prompt oral disclosure of the seller’s identity at the beginning of calls, maintaining DNC lists, and honoring do-not-call requests within a reasonable time. While these are primarily agent behavior requirements, VICIdial’s scripting and disposition features support compliance.

Why It Matters

TSR violations can result in FTC enforcement actions with penalties up to $50,120 per violation. The FTC has been increasingly active in pursuing telemarketing compliance actions, and the TSR’s broad scope covers nearly all outbound sales calling operations.

For VICIdial operators, TSR compliance overlaps significantly with TCPA compliance but adds business-practice requirements beyond technology configuration. Agent training, script compliance, and proper disclosure procedures are essential TSR components that technology alone cannot address.