The long awaited 'Do Not Call Registry' is finally a reality. TRAI has finally delivered on its promise. And Unlike the perception it seems that all the stakeholders are winners.

The Consumer
Telecom subscribers can finally heave a sigh of relief. They can now get rid of telemarketing calls if they wish to. The National 'do not call' registry, which bans unsolicited telemarketing calls, has kicked off.

The sheer number of people who have already registered with the NDNC can be a judge to the need for such a move. Within three-weeks of its formal launch, 6 mn subscribers have registered, although this includes the people who had earlier registered with individual service provider and banks as well.

Registering your name with the NDNC will block incoming calls from different kinds of services. However, a customer might want to have an option to choose the service where he wants to receive a call from and where he doesn't. This choice is not available currently, but may be something that customers and the telemarketing industry will want. As told by a senior TRAI official, they are contemplating such a service in the next nine months.

All Emerge Winners
Telemarketing Players: There is a business that runs behind these promotional calls. About 20,000 people work in the telemarketing industry in India and this is a big source of revenue for telecom service providers as well. With the implementation of NDNC both service providers and the telemarketing industry can be hit. But, industry experts believe that it will actually help the industry. Now the telemarketer will know who wants to receive a call to know about the products and who does not. Pawan Bhasin, general manager, Trinet says, "It's a positive step. We will, in fact, benefit from it. Now we know whom we should call."

Even if it affects the business, somebody will find loopholes in the laws to survive (TRAI keep a watch). The big loophole existing in the Indian version is the 'previous business relationship' loophole. If one customer has a earlier business relationship with one corporate, that corporate is allowed to make unsolicitated calls to that customer. It will be interesting to watch how Indian companies handle this issue.

Service Provider: The NDNC will also benefit service providers. Firstly, they will gain customer support. Secondly, it will reduce congestion in the network. However, if the telemarketing industry is hit, operators will also have to take a hit on their revenues. The responsibility of handling complaints lies with service providers and they will be in a peculiar situation where they have a big customer as offender on the one hand (telemarketing company) and on the other, an individual customer as complainant. On the one hand is a lot of revenue and on the other is credibility. But, loss of revenue will be too minuscule compared to the cost of losing credibility in the eyes of a vast majority of subscribers. However, service providers can certainly discourage customers from filing complaints. Asked about the issue, the Cellular Operators Association of India's (COAI) director general, TV Ramachandran, says, "We welcome this move of TRAI. We are not concerned about the revenue, we want to gain customer confidence, and help them get rid of this menace". COAI has kicked off a public awareness campaign.

Report Card
As per TRAI, some 14,750 telemarketers with around 6,00,000 telephone lines have put in their applications for registering with the government to comply with the NDNC Registry guidelines. All telecom operators claim to have set-up all the necessary operations in place as per regulatory requirements. However, if you call any service provider, their IVR does not give direct access to register for NDNC.

The Wait is On
With everybody from TRAI to the High Court coming to the rescue of harried customers, we hope that things will improve in the coming days. It will be interesting to see subscribers' response in the long run, and how the industry copes with the changed conditions.

Nilabh Jha
nilabhj@cybermedia.co.in

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