HYDERABAD: If you are one of the 18 million subscribers who registered in the National Do Not Call (NDNC) registry, then you have successfully blocked yourself from not just promotional and marketing messages and calls but also from relevant information-related communication.
Thanks to the poor implementation and lack of data classification, some subscribers continue to get unsolicited communication from pesky telemarketers, while some of them have been barred from alerts, which they anyway wanted to receive.
In September 2007, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) introduced NDNC, which is nothing but a database containing the list of all numbers of subscribers who do not want to be disturbed with unwanted calls and messages. Mobile and landline telecom subscribers, who wish to avail the service, can log on to www.donotcall.gov and register under any of the three categories namely with the telecom operator; with banks; with insurance companies.
While customers, who register with the telecom operator, will not receive calls or messages from any marketing personnel, subscribers registering under banks or insurance companies category, will have the option to block telemarketers of specific bank or insurance company or companies. So far so good.
But, trouble started when Value- Added Services (VAS) companies were blocked from sending information alerts even for those subscribers who wanted to receive updates. “Agreed that the registry came into force to prevent unsolicited commercial content.
But as a result of NDNC we are unable to communicate with those subscribers who are willing to receive them,” says Vishwadeep Bajaj, co-founder & CEO, ValueFirst, a mobility solutions provider.
For instance, Mohan Raj, was repeatedly getting calls from his banker. Tired of these routine unwanted calls not just from Bangalore, the city he resides in, but from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai, he registered with NDNC. While he got some respite, he was flummoxed when he stopped getting daily stock alerts and updates on salary credits every month.
As a result of this, companies like ValueFirst are losing out 10-15 per cent revenues. “There’s a difference between marketing and promotional messages and information- related communication.
Because of the poor implementation of NDNC, VAS companies like us are losing out on business,” says Bajaj.
However, a section of the industry feels that companies need to adoptn effective tools to segregate data and deploy targeted marketing. “Even after NDNC has been there for more than a year in practice, companies are yet to adopt targeted mobile marketing strategies. As a result, subscribers are losing out on relevant communication,” says Vinod Vasudevan, Group CEO, Flytxt, a mobile marketing technology provider.