Monday, May 5, 2003		Feature

Selling through phone’s receiver
Vijay Satokar

Remember whom did you last give your business card to and where? Casually giving your business card may earn somebody a good business but flood you with unwanted calls from credit card companies, estate agents, car financers and cellular phone operators.

Welcome to the world of telemarketing, the latest mantra in selling products and being used by business house from New Delhi to New York alike.

Exchange of information on potential clients has become a big business. Faced with fierce competition, the bankers, cellular phone companies or even hotels are suddenly interested in getting a common man’s patronage.

"Telemarketing is one area which is picking up fast in India. Many companies are willing to pay fees to purchase databases of high-end customers," those in the business say.

"The reservoir of cheap talent puts India in a position to stake claim to big chunks of new IT service markets. One area is IT-enabled services: telemarketing, help-desk support, medical transcription, insurance claim and credit card processing - any service which can be delivered via phones, computers and the Internet," says Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom (National Association of Software and Service Companies).

A number of international companies have set up telemarketing and call centres in India to outsource customer service and telemarketing at very low costs and in an efficient manner, says Amardeep, a call centre executive.

Although telemarketing and contact centre business have picked up in India, the business here is mostly dependent on business originating from the USA and Britain, he says.

However, the use of call centres by domestic companies too is undergoing enormous growth due to importance attached by companies to customer care, telemarketing for product offerings, telebanking, concept of direct response television and home shopping and market liberalisation of utilities, says Deepika Maini, team leader of a customer care wing in a call centre.

In addition, telemarketing is growing and information lines are forming part of many product service offerings. Telephone banking has led to mushrooming of call centres in the financial services sector, while in retail the increase in direct response television and home shopping have driven call centre growth, says Maini.

Finally, the growth of direct marketing has also contributed to the popularity of call centres as a means of reaching targeted customer bases, she says.

Call centres provide large and small international enterprises with the unique ability to establish a presence in foreign markets without the expense and complexity of owning and managing their own infrastructure, says Amardeep.

Meanwhile, flooded with complaints from customers of unwanted calls, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the USA has amended the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to give consumers a choice about whether they want to receive most telemarketing calls.

American consumers soon will be able to put their phone numbers on a national ‘do not call’ registry. It will be illegal for most telemarketers to call a number listed on the registry. Calling phone numbers on the list could cost these home-invading slimeballs as much as $11,000—per call.

"Even if that money is never actually collected, I hope the possibility will put a little fear into these, well, home-invading slimeballs. It may not be long that India too may have to enact a similar legislation", says a harassed executive.