Section 6 of 7
The Telephone
The toll-free number, the telemarketing floor, and the regulatory response that followed — from AT&T's 1967 launch to the Do Not Call Registry.
From 1967 the advertiser paid for the call, which is what made the telephone an order channel.
- AT&T Reversed the Charge, 1967The TelephoneAT&T's 800-number service, introduced in 1967, removed the cost of calling from the respondent — what the change did to response rates for direct-mail and DRTV campaigns, and how it made the telephone a usable order channel at scale.
- A Long Room Full of ScriptsThe TelephoneThe outbound telemarketing floor of the 1970s and 1980s — the physical space, the card deck, the script, the quota and the measurement of calls-to-sales.
- The Registry Opened in 2003The TelephoneThe National Do Not Call Registry, established by the FTC in 2003, allowed consumers to remove their telephone numbers from outbound calling lists — the statutory provisions, the scale of registration in its first year, and what the measure cost the telemarketing industry.
Elsewhere on the ledger