Hello Sir, this is …………. Calling from …………….. Bank. We have a very nice offer for you on our credit card.
How many times exactly do we all receive such calls these days? Well, it is difficult to count exactly but the pain such calls leaves in the middle of any meeting is not to be forgotten. These pesky calls and messages from companies that we receive everyday make us abhor the caller, the brand and entire company altogether based on the frequency of these Unsolicited Commercials Communications (UCC). In the 21st century, mobile phones have emerged as one of the greatest tool of communication and have greatly affected marketing initiatives of the company. SMS based marketing,
telemarketing etc. are the end results of these UCC’s which we encounter everyday in life. After working in the telecommunication domain for almost 2 years now, I am able to appreciate the nature of these communications.
SMS based marketing are mostly of A2P nature (Application to Peer), where a list of mobile numbers are uploaded and send button is clicked on the URL based applications. The moment we receive a message, we see “XY-ABCD” on the sender panel, where X represents the Telecom operator (TATA, Vodafone etc.), Y is the telecom circle (Mumbai, Maharashtra & Goa etc.), ABCD represents the “Sender id.” which is generally of 8 digits as per TRAI’s regulations. The sender id’s can be alphanumeric or numeric too, depending upon the choice of the customer (in a B2B set up).
The recent regulation from TRAI prevents companies to send messages and does not allow telemarketers to pester consumers with untimely calls, provided the consumer’s number is registered with the National Do Not Call (NDNC) Registry. This move is a great welcome by consumers, who have been facing the burnt of pesky calls and messages off and on. The entire database at present available with the companies would be filtered by the operator removing the messages submitted against NDNC registered numbers and then would be delivered on the handsets. This would prevent unsolicited messages to reach our handsets. Telemarketers have been asked to subscribe to a number starting with “70…” series, which would differentiate them from other calls and put a control on them. The timings for the calls have been defined between 9 AM to 9PM.
Although the same has been received with mixed reaction from the companies, and telecom operators, this move would certainly bring down the number of annoying calls that we receive everyday on our handsets for the time-being.
Watch out for Impact of UCC on marketing initiatives of companies in my next post.
Alok Ranjan
