Tele-marketing: new rules of the game

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: Over 230 million telecom subscribers in India now have the option of opting out of tele-marketing calls and apparently more than six million, predominantly urban users, have already taken up the offer.

The new directive that allows subscribers to list their landline and mobile numbers under the National Do Not Call (NDNC) database and opt out of receiving any unsolicited commercial communications (UCC), including SMS (short messaging service) has found many takers.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has disclosed that 14,750 tele-marketers having around 4.5 lakh telephone lines have put in their applications for registering with the government to comply with the NDNC registry guidelines. Registered tele-marketers not complying will face fines and even severe punishments.

This has changed how the $240 million tele-marketing industry that generates more than 10 billion calls a year will need to engage the customer. Buying lists from service providers or anyone else will not have the same charm. No more can a caller just try his luck with a random number hoping it would be his lucky break. It’s a totally different ballgame that promises to separate the men from the boys. The following scenarios may emerge:

Use of contextual marketing and sophisticated modelling: Technology is likely to play an important role in understanding whom to target at what time. Customer databases will be constantly mined and tracked to figure this out. For example, if a bank is able to monitor a person’s salary hike at the beginning of the financial year, it will be able to target its new mutual fund scheme as an investment to that person increasing the odds of sale significantly.

If a retailer gauges the monthly purchase pattern of a loyalty customer, he could use that information to specifically market substitute high-margin products. If a marketer can mine credit card customer data and on realising that the customer spends more than 80% on restaurants in a particular area could specifically market another restaurant in the vicinity. A telecom company could even profile its customers based on their caller tunes and could target specific messages to them—let’s say even market a rock show.