In December of last year, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) announced new policies that protect consumers from SPAM marketing SMS and calls. After much delay and regular postponement, the regulation is finally coming into effect from September 27th 2011.
While these regulations are well discussed, ecommerce and others web businesses have not yet fully realized the impact of these regulations. There are important implications being overlooked by many web businesses that are at risk of fines and interruptions to their services if they do not take action.
There are several use cases where web businesses rely on sending SMS to customers for verification of the customer’s mobile phone which will now under the new regulations be considered promotional and be restricted, including:
· Customer registration
· Lead generation
· Purchases or transactions
· Change in password or account details
Typically, the customer mobile number is verified by the system generating and SMS to the customer’s mobile with a unique code. That unique code is then entered into the web page for verification that the customer on the site is in fact the owner of the mobile phone. Some businesses also solve this with an outbound call to the customer’s mobile phone.
There are cases where a customer tries to register someone else's mobile number, by mistake or in a malicious attempt, and the SMS or call goes to an unknown third person who would consider this as SPAM. In such a case if the customer who received the potential SPAM complains against the web business, then the business is liable for a penalty of Rs. 25,000. Every subsequent penalty increases up to Rs. 2.5 lakhs eventually resulting in a two year ban.
Also, since the promotional SMSes are allowed only between 9AM to 9PM the web businesses would virtually need to shut shop during the rest of the hours.
ZipDial To Verify is a service that asks the user to ZipDial or place a missed call on a given number to prove the ownership of the phone number. A website that uses ZipDial to Verify would ask the user to enter his mobile number on the site and show a ZipDial number in return. The user is required to dial this number from his aforesaid mobile number. These ZipDial numbers are like any other telephone number reachable from any mobile or landline around the world. The ZipDial numbers are specially programmed to auto-disconnect the call in one ring, thereby costing nothing to the user. Once the ZipDial system captures the call, the website is informed in real time, thus counting the mobile number as verified.
Commenting on the service, Valerie R. Wagoner, CEO of ZipDial said, “We launched the service back in March when the TRAI regulation was first supposed to be enforced. Since then we have got good response from customers of all domain.” She added, “Not only does the service comply with the TRAI regulation but even otherwise it decreases the dropout rate as compared to SMS based verifications since there is no delivery latency involved, which is usually the case with SMSes.”
ZipDial’s system is completely cloud based hence offers high reliability and scalability. ZipDial has recently signed up Kotak Bank as its client for the service and many ecommerce portals are already using the service successfully.
About ZipDial
The company was established out of Bangalore in early 2010 and now has a growing team of 14. ZipDial’s technology is patent pending and was built in-house by the team.
The ZipDial platform is 100% accessible to the mass market. The experience is a simple as dialing numbers – or missed calls. To understand the ZipDial experience, try ZipDial Cricket to stay tuned to the current IPL even on the go. Simply dial (toll-free missed call) 080 300 500 55.
ZipDial has been tested and proven through past campaigns with large customers such as Proctor & Gamble, KFC with Pepsi, Sanofi-Aventis, Videocon. Services are also live with happy small and medium business customers, including ecommerce businesses, law firms, individual celebrities, NGOs and live event managers. With successful customer campaigns in India and the Caribbean, ZipDial is ready to further expand globally.
