VMC Technologies CEO Sundeep Misra says latest TRAI regulations will hurt Cloud telephony business in India, the second largest telecom market in the world.
Indian businesses are developing technologies that are making SMEs more productive, help them compete better with larger players and improve overall return on their investments.
Cloud telephony is one such technology. Cloud telephony solutions allow SME businesses to automate their incoming call/voice processes to give better control over their telephony based transactions.
Indian cloud telephony products like MCube developed ground up by VMC Technologies after investing huge sums of time and money on innovation, technology and business model to develop a product from India, for India, by India. These cloud telephony products are offering value to customers and helping them increase their profitability. Having said all this these companies are small in size than large companies that government of India cares about and these businesses like any small businesses do not have any support from government of India.
In fact, some regulations from Government of India may result in downfall for such companies, further erode confidence of innovators and investors from India. There is one such regulation from TRAI regulation that is hurting cloud telephony solution providers.
According to the new TRAI regulation:
“Any number used as call back number in a SMS campaign to a NDNC number will result in blocking to all telecom services of the owner of call back number. Operators will have to block all telecom services for the business whose number is used in the campaign.”
I think the regulation has been brought in haste without thinking through the consequences. Result will be that those who want to continue to send SMS to NDNC numbers will continue to do so, however this regulation will impact honest businesses and people in a negative way.
Let us first understand what does above regulation mean and the impact of this regulation on cloud telephony providers in India, how does it impact other businesses, if used with bad intensions how can it affect others, said VMC Technologies CEO Sundeep Misra.
Based on this regulation if a message is sent from a number YYYYYYYYYY to a number on do not call registry :
“Buy property at Gurgaon, call XXXXXXXXXX”
Then the owner of the number YYYYYYYYYY will be penalized. This is fair.
However based on this new regulation the owner of the number XXXXXXXXXX will be penalized by blocking all telecom services of the business or individual. This is where the problem is.
Most times lead generation business is conducted by third party, however the number used as call back may not be that of the party sending message. This means someone sent a campaign and 100 numbers belonging to my business will be blocked, bringing my business to a halt. The result may be that I am not able to conduct any business and this may result in shutting down my business all together, employees loosing job, indirect loss to people involved, loss of revenue to operator, loss of service tax and TDS to government of India and other economic implications.
This regulation impacts cloud telephony solutions in a manner TRAI could not even imagine. Cloud telephony services are value added services over traditional telephony in India. Cloud telephony service providers manage incoming calls for businesses at low cost, however need to get telephony services and infrastructure in their name from the operators. The numbers are leased by businesses to purposes like lead management, sales management, support management, office telephony, help lines and many more. The service helps business of any size function like a large corporation.
Cloud telephony service providers have contracts in place that tell businesses to follow all TRAI guidelines all the time. However the problem is if some business uses the cloud telephony number to be sent as a call back number for a SMS campaign the cloud telephony solution provider will not know or have control just like the operator would not. If this results in a complaint the regulator will ask operator to block all telephony services for the operator. This will result in huge economic loss to the cloud telephony business, operator, employees and every one indirectly involved.
Government of India needs to think through the regulation and take cloud telephony operators and regard them like telephony operator to block specific numbers, get information about the business that signed up for this solution to block services to the business.
Having said this I think this regulation is still flawed and can be used for malicious purposes.
Let’s say I am a political leader of political party X and I get know of some telephone numbers owned by political party Y. My campaign is not doing well and I want to cause major disruption to the business conducted by Y, all I need to do is run a commercial campaign on NDNC numbers for numbers from Y. People will complain to TRAI, TRAI will instruct operator to block all the telecom services for Y. Result – a total shut-down for Y.
My request to TRAI will be to rethink the regulation, make it fool proof, consider economic and social implications of the regulation, consider cloud telephony service providers for the benefit of SMEs, for the first time SMEs are starting to function like larger corporations.
At the end I hope someone from TRAI is reading this and will help us get a better regulation that not only helps NDNC registered users but also innocent businesses. This will help businesses continue to innovate and investors continue to invest and have confidence on Indian businesses.
Totally agree with Sandeep. The regulation is not only causing issues to Cloud Telephony, but this is an issue in general.
To the first approximation, as explained by you, person A can send SMS with person B’s number, and block B’a telephony assets in principal. This is amazing.
A recent American Express Survey points out that out of 10
customers, 7 think it is better to go with the existing brand. Reason?
Excellent customer service they claim. But there is one more interpretation.
While going with an existing brand, the customer is ascertained that he is
going with the right one, in the right direction. Yes, the ambiguity aspect
regarding the trust vanishes. For brand
the takeaway is to build up that rapport more and more, because getting
business from an existing customer is 60% easier than from a new prospect, i.e.
the customer acquisition cost is seemingly lower in this case. Hence, exceeding
the customer’s expectation pays off, though in the long run. Today, every
industry and every business, particularly the small business, tries to milk the
benefit of customer satisfaction. The endeavor would definitely ask for some
investment, and call management for small business is one that can‘t be ignored.
Today with the onset of software-as-a-service or cloud-based
solution, getting a call management for small business won’t ask for a colossal
budget. Unlike the previous days, the business entrepreneur doesn’t need to pay
for the bulk of the software. Instead, he or she pays for just what he or she
requires to operate. The service provider is not doing any mercy on their
clients. The only thing that allows them to offer the service at nominal price
is the shared interests. Hence, all clients are collectively sharing the burden
of the IT investment incurred by the service provider. Consequently, getting
started with a call management software for small business has become easier,
as the takers don’t need to go into the planning and deployment of complicated
servers and other IT components. Just with a subscription they can avail the
entire enterprise-level benefit of a call management software.
However, before zeroing in on a particular call management
software, the business owner must pay attention to their needs. They should
assess their call volume, number of workstations, number of active agents, the
protocols regarding service level agreements, customer segment which they want
to serve and more. Apart from that, the taker must look into the availability,
scalability and reliability aspects of the vendor in question. Note that no
decision-making can happen without reviewing the terms and conditions of the
service plans, if the client-vendor relationship has to be an enduring one.
Some of the features of an ideal call management software
include: (a) Automatic call distribution (ACD) – this helps in routing the
calls to different departments or agents based on the nature of queries or
customer type; (b) Auto-attendant – this makes sure that every call is
entertained and routed forward if required. It should be capable of helping the
caller on its own. For instance, apart from greeting the caller with customized
messages, it can help them enter their request or lodge complaints or even seek
information on the spot. This literally reduces the burden on the workforce,
and hence it has become an ideal tool in curbing the operational cost; (c) Call
reporting – this is primarily required to make sure that agents deal with the
customers in the right manner.