For entrepreneurs learning the art of telemarketing can be a crucial factor in the success of their business. If there is an update which is needed to be sent to the company’s client, telemarketing can come to the rescue. If an entrepreneur wants to send sms updates to those clients who had opted to receive sms, telemarketing can help.

A telemarketing service provider (and not an access provider like airtel or vodafone) or even perhaps an advertising company with the intent to provide sms campaigns to its clients, needs to know the the registration and compliance requirements to be on the safer side. Read further to know about the telemarketing laws in India that can facilitate telemarketers.

Restriction on telemarketing- Unsolicited Commercial Communication

In India, the area businessmen might need to take care of is the ‘unsolicited commercial communication’ in telemarketing which is illegal. Unsolicited commercial communication is the sending of any commercial message which the client has not subscribed to. Also, any sms sent to a customer whom the customer opts not to receive from before is an unsolicited commercial communication.
Entrepreneurs and businessmen can be relieved though as the telemarketing laws of India do not pose hindrance into the daily functions of their companies. Companies might send any message to their clients which pertain to transactions which arise in accordance with the contract between the two parties. Also messages transmitted by the companies on the orders of the government and any authority or agency authorized by the government are said to be valid ones.

Process of registration for telemarketers

For a starting entrepreneur in the telemarketing business, there are various procedures he needs to know. All telemarketers are required to register themselves under the guidelines made for telemarketers by the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology within three months of the issue of such guidelines. Apart from that, all telemarketers are required to register themselves with TRAI in accordance with the procedure and conditions given in Schedule III given in the TRAI Act.

Telemarketers also need to undertake and accede to regulations made by government of India before entering the business of telemarketing within three months of the commencement of the such regulation. You can find the undertaking form here.

There are penalties assigned for the telemarketer in case he does not adhere to these rules. If the telemarketer fails to register in three months with the Government of India the telephone connection or provision of the telecoms service might be discontinued. Also if the telemarketer fails to be registered with the TRAI then he is not allowed to make any commercial communication of any sort.

Telemarketers are also supposed to register themselves with the National Marketer register and obtain a registration number. The registration of the telemarketers is valid for three years unless of course the registration is revoked earlier. A fee of Rs. 1000 as registration and Rs. 9000 as customer education needs to be paid by telemarketers according to the pay fees specified in Schedule III. When existing telemarketers reapply for their registration they need to pay Rs 9000 as customer education fee

Deregistration process for telemarketers

For telemarketers who feel the need to deregister they too need to follow some rules. Telemarketers need to surrender their entire telecom resources to the Access Providers from whom they took the resources and get them disconnected.

If telemarketers are not careful then they might just get themselves in the black list the National telemarketer register. This can happen if the Telemarketer fails to adhere to the conditions it had set up with the originating Access provider like the failure of furnishing the security amount needed.

Hope this post was useful for you.

* Researched and written by Soubhik Chakrabarty, 1st yr, RGNLU, Patiala.