ICM Direct is commissioned to conduct thousands of telephone surveys every year by a wide range of clients who are looking to gather opinions of the population at large or their own customers in particular. Our interviewers are trained to be professional at all times and are given a large range of information to help them deal with any questions that may arise during the course of our surveys and the telephone calls we make. However, questions may arise after the call has ended, or you may want to comment or make a complaint.
Information and explanations are given below for some of the most common questions asked of us. If you need to contact anyone at ICM Direct as a result of a call we have made, please email CalledByUs@icm-direct.com
a) We called you recently and you have a complaint or query
When we make calls we always present a Caller Line Identification (CLI) number – we only ever use either of the 2 following numbers: 020 7073 8250 or 0845 337 3183. If you have been receiving calls from other numbers then other companies we have no connection with will have been calling you.
If you do not want us to call you again please email CalledByUs@icm-direct.com giving details of your number and ideally the date/time we called. We will add your number to our Do Not Call list to ensure you are not called again by us – this is usually done within 1 working day but may take up to 2 working days. In all cases we will endeavour to respond to you as quickly as possible.
Please be assured we are registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 as a Data Controller and any numbers you supply to us will be stored only so that we do not call these numbers in future. We will never pass your number to anyone else and can also add mobile numbers or landline numbers to our Do Not Call list.
b) Where did you get my telephone number from?
There are 2 main ways in which we may have obtained your telephone number:
- We are often commissioned by companies to conduct surveys on their behalf with their customers: this ensures an independent, unbiased approach to collecting opinions and helps companies get an accurate picture of their customers’ views. In such cases we would have been passed customer details by the company commissioning the research;
- Some clients want their surveys to be nationally or regionally representative of the population. In such cases we will have randomly generated your phone number through a widely used Market Research method called Random Digit Dialling. This means we take a “seed” number, that isn’t called, and then change the last digit to create new numbers. For example, 020 7428 7870 would be changed to 020 7428 7871, 7872, 7873 etc. Because these numbers are generated randomly we hold no personal information related to them: indeed, until we call these numbers we do not know if they exist as live telephone numbers.
c) Why do you call me when I am registered with the Telephone Preference Service/TPS?
ICM does not sell or market any products – the purpose of our calls is always for research, the answers to which are completely confidential and only ever passed on to clients in an aggregate form. As a market research company conducting surveys, ICM Direct is exempt from TPS guidelines as TPS was set up to allow registration by those who do not wish to receive sales and marketing calls: this is stated in the letter TPS send out to all those who register with them:
“Your TPS registration will not stop calls from companies involved in market research…”
The TPS website also states this in its FAQ section:
17. Will registering on the TPS stop market research calls? No, market research calls are not covered in the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 <http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/eventual.aspx?id=96> therefore companies conducting these types of calls are still allowed to call a TPS registered number. If you do not want to receive such calls, inform the caller to remove your details from their call lists.
If you want to register with TPS to prevent sales or marketing calls please follow this link: http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/ TPS is a free service.
d) Why did you call me in the first place?
ICM Direct is commissioned to conduct research by a very wide range of organisations, including amongst others: political parties, charities, newspapers, local authorities, government departments and a wide range of businesses.
All these organisations share the same need of finding out what people think so that they can better move their organisations forward – this is the ultimate reason for them to commission research and the reason we will have called you.
e) Company Information
Company Registration No: 3543454
Data Controller Registration No: Z5242749
Quality certification: ISO 9001-2008
Certificate no: FS67676
ISO 9001:2008