Air conditioning leads: judging and contacting them

What are air conditioning leads?

Air conditioning leads are enquiries from people or businesses that may want cooling installed, serviced or repaired. A firm may get them from its own website, referrals and past customers, or buy them from a lead provider. The value of each one depends on how clearly it describes a job the firm can do.

Wider ways of finding enquiries, such as local search and a website built to capture them, sit under lead generation services. The rest of this guide covers judging enquiries, questioning providers and the contact rules that follow.

How can an installer judge whether a lead is worth having?

An enquiry names a person or business and describes a job. A contact list names people with no sign that they want anything. For a firm that installs or services cooling equipment, that difference shapes what a lead is worth.

Useful checks include the type of work wanted (new installation, servicing or repair), the kind of property, whether it sits inside the area the firm covers, and how soon the work is wanted. It also helps to ask whether the same enquiry has been passed to several firms, and how the person came to make it.

If a provider contacts businesses on a firm's behalf, the guide to outsourced B2B lead generation covers the calling, emailing and objection rules in more depth.

What should you ask a lead provider about its data?

Bought leads are personal data in many cases, so the buyer carries responsibility for how they were collected. Before using data broking services, a firm must undertake appropriate due diligence to satisfy itself that the personal data complies with the GDPR, DPA 2018 and, if applicable, PECR.

Simply accepting a data broker's assurances that the data they are supplying is compliant is not enough. ^[4]

Useful questions to put to a provider include who compiled the data, where it was obtained, what privacy information people were given, when it was collected and how. A firm may also ask for records of consent where the data is described as consented, including what people consented to, what they were told, whether the firm was named, and when and how they consented, and evidence of when the TPS or CTPS was last screened against.

If a firm buys or rents lists of individuals' contact details to use for direct marketing, it must provide those on the list with its privacy information within one month of obtaining their data. ^[4]

Can a firm email or text air conditioning enquiries?

A firm must not send marketing emails or texts to individuals without specific consent, and there is a limited exception for its own previous customers, often called the soft opt-in. ^[2]

The exception covers an existing customer who bought, or negotiated to buy, a similar product or service from the firm in the past, and who was given a simple way to opt out both when their details were first collected and in every message sent.

A homeowner who enquired without buying is not automatically outside that exception. The firm may check whether the enquiry involved negotiating to buy a similar service, and whether the opt-out was offered each time.

A firm must not disguise or conceal its identity when emailing or texting individuals, and it must provide a valid contact address so they can opt out or unsubscribe.

The PECR rule on direct marketing by electronic mail does not apply to corporate subscribers. Sole traders and some partnerships are treated by PECR as individual subscribers, so they can be marketed to by electronic mail only if they have specifically consented, or the soft opt-in applies.

The UK GDPR still applies to marketing to a business if the firm is processing personal data. ^[1]

Phoning landlords and business enquiries

Calls to property managers, letting agents and facilities teams are one way a firm may look for servicing work across several sites. Live calls to businesses carry their own checks.

In most circumstances, a live marketing call to a business cannot go to a number registered with the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) or the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) unless the business has consented to the calls. ^[1]

A live marketing call also cannot go to the number of a business that has previously objected to calls.

Before making live marketing calls, a firm must check its list against the TPS and its own don't contact list. ^[3]

If a firm makes automated marketing calls, it must have consent from people that they are happy to receive these.

PECR marketing rules do not apply to marketing by post, but the firm still must comply with data protection law when sending it to people.

For live calls to businesses, the source says a firm needs to screen against both the CTPS and TPS registers, as well as its own do not call list.

For live business calls, a firm must allow its number (or an alternative contact number) to be displayed to the business receiving the call, and must provide its contact details or a Freephone number if asked. For automated marketing calls to a business, a firm must also allow its number or an alternative contact number to be displayed to those receiving the call.

What happens when a lead asks not to be contacted?

A facilities manager who declines further calls, or a homeowner who unsubscribes from servicing reminders, changes what a firm can send next. Businesses can object to direct marketing too.

If someone opts out, objects or withdraws consent, the firm must stop using their information for direct marketing. ^[3]

If a business that has consented chooses to opt out or unsubscribe, a firm cannot start or continue to send it direct marketing by electronic mail.

A firm should keep a suppression or don't contact list, so that details are checked before any later campaign and effort is not spent contacting people who have said no.