Telemarketing: Effective strategy or public nuisance? 

Illustration: TBS

On a quiet afternoon, 21-year-old Raisa had her nose in a book, entirely detached from her mobile phone. But an incoming call broke the trance. 

When she picked up, the person from the other side introduced himself as a representative of an e-commerce site and proceeded to flood Raisa with offers of different products. The thing is, Raisa wasn't interested in any of the products at all. She tried to interrupt the person a few times to no avail. 

At one point, Raisa lost her patience and cut the call. 

"But it left a bad taste in my mouth for the remainder of the day. I couldn't concentrate on reading the book anymore that afternoon. And I felt like my entire day had been ruined," recalled Raisa in a tone full of bitterness.

"I especially feel bothered when I am in the middle of an important meeting, and they start speaking like it's a matter of my life and death – whether I buy their product or not," said Jahir Ahmed, a corporate job holder. 

Almost everyone with a phone has more or less experienced a similar call from a telemarketer, at least once in their life. Such promotional calls, a big part of telemarketing, have become very common – a result of the country's increasing mobile phone penetration rate.

Recently, The Business Standard caught up with leading brands involved in telemarketing, as well as experienced telemarketers, to understand how this sector works and how it has achieved significant growth over the recent years. 

We also reached out to marketing academics to understand the pros and cons of telemarketing, and how it is faring as a whole, while consulting with prominent lawyers to see if there is any way out for customers who consider telemarketing a nuisance. 

But first, let's start with the very basics. 

What is telemarketing?

Telemarketing is the practice of marketing products or services over the phone. While it can also involve email and fax, the most popular methods of telemarketing in Bangladesh are promotional calls and SMS. 

According to Imrul Kayes, manager of Notionhive, a leading marketing agency in Bangladesh, there could be two types of telemarketing. One is B2B (business-to-business), which takes place between one business and another. The other is B2C (business-to-consumer), taking place between a business and an individual as the end customer.

"Companies or organisations indulge in B2B to do business on a big scale," informed Kayes, who previously worked as a trainee planning officer at Biman Bangladesh Airlines. "For example, 40 staff from a company will go abroad. Generally, they will book tickets through travel agencies, who in return get some commission. 

"But sometimes airlines telemarketers reach a representative of the company and convince them to buy the tickets directly from the airlines. This is an example of B2B telemarketing that is happening between two businesses," Kayes explained. 

However, the calls common people receive from different companies in their everyday life are examples of B2C telemarketing. Such telemarketing is aimed at selling products or services on a limited scale. 

For B2B telemarketing, companies collect information about business executives – who could potentially be their customers – through official websites, LinkedIn etc.

But for B2C telemarketing, companies gather contact numbers of customers who have already shopped with them, or registered to their websites by submitting contact details. 

The growth of telemarketing  

Interestingly, unlike other marketing methods, telemarketing had a very humble beginning. The roots of it date back to the mid-20th century when a call centre was set up in the United States and a group of housewives – as part-time employees – started calling people to find potential cookie buyers. 

Around 1965, telemarketing became more popular, and more people became professionally trained to make sales calls. Five years later, telemarketing became widely recognised. 

Chaldal, the country's largest online grocery delivery platform, is most associated with promotional calls as a marketing strategy in Bangladesh right now. 

"Chaldal initiated the telesales team with a small group of committed members in 2017. In 2019, after launching our office at Sheikh Hasina Software Technology Park in Jessore, we formalised the team with more people and processes. This team is now an integral force in Chaldal's business growth," the company's head of Brand and Communication,  Muhammad Nazimuddaula told TBS. 

According to a YouTube video titled "Life at Chaldal" on the company's official channel, they had 30 employees in their telesales team back in 2019. But in September 2021, there were 300-400 employees. This indicates the massive growth of telemarketing in the company. 

However, not all companies claim to have a similar telemarketing strategy.

Kamruzzaman Milu, Media and Public Relations (PR) Manager of retail chain shop Shwapno said they do not have any telemarketing team as such, and they only send out SMS to their customers. 

However, a lot of people claimed that they had actually received calls from Shawpno. 

Meanwhile, the country's largest online bookshop Rokomari's Head of Brand Communication and Inbound Marketing Mahmudul Hasan Sadi shared that they had a telemarketing strategy in the past through which they would call potential customers to inform them about new books or offers. 

"But now we are trying to gradually optimise it. Our focus is now on their information collection or digital sales," he added. 

Telemarketing: A public nuisance?

The biggest complaint against telemarketing, especially promotional calls, is that they create a public nuisance. 

Dr Mohammad Shahidul Islam, an Assistant Professor of Marketing at BRAC Business School, pointed to the lack of training of the telemarketers as the reason behind calls at ungodly hours. It's the disregard, from the telemarketers' end, for the call receiver's convenience that leads to intense annoyance, on the recipients' part. 

"Most telemarketers don't understand what is a suitable time to call customers. Hence, they call customers at a time when they are usually busy, making them annoyed in the process," he said. 

Imrul Kayes also chipped in, "people get frustrated when there are frequent calls. Sometimes I feel the necessity of proper guidelines. Also, most telemarketers in the country are not well-trained."

Jannatul Nayem Pinkey, currently the Manager of Customer Conversion at ACI Logistics (Shwapno), has previous experience of working as a telemarketer, and then a telemarketing trainer, for some of the country's leading brands. "A telemarketer's job is to push the customers to buy products or services from their organisation. But while doing so, they may often face embarrassing situations. 

"For example, customers can hang up the phone on them, or hurl abuses at them. In such cases, we try to handle the situation on our own. But if the situation goes out of hand, we may call our supervisor for assistance," she explained. 

Chaldal's Nazimuddaula also addressed this issue saying, "Certainly, while it is natural that some customers may become annoyed by receiving phone calls from Chaldal's telemarketers, the company makes a concerted effort to handle these situations efficiently and effectively. 

"Chaldal's telemarketers are trained to be professional, polite and attentive to customer concerns, and they strive to provide a positive and satisfactory experience for all customers, even those who may be initially annoyed or frustrated," he added. 

Does telemarketing actually work?

A common notion around telemarketing is that it does not really help businesses to grow. It's because most people who talk about it generally complain about it, and fail to be influenced or convinced to buy products or services the organisation's telemarketers promote. 

Dr Nasrin Akter,  a Professor of Marketing at the University of Dhaka, said: "From a customer's perspective, I don't find telemarketing calls very useful for me. On most occasions, they come up with weird offers.

"I only continue talking to them if they are offering me a product that is useful or relevant to me."  

But as it stands, there is also a significant percentage of people whom telemarketers can effectively convince to sell their products.

According to Imrul Kayes, the average success rate of B2B telemarketing is around 20%. 

"In Bangladesh, B2B telemarketing is still very effective. But it's not like we are able to sell our services right away. Promotional calls over the phone work as a primary bridge connection. But then we go through other mediums of communication, sometimes face-to-face meetings as well, to finalise a deal," he shared. 

The success rate of B2C telemarketing in the country is also more or less the same, opined Pinkey. 

"Actually the success rate varies from one sector to another. But generally, 50 or 60 people out of every 100 people pick up the phone. Of those 50-60 people, maybe 20-22 become interested in the offered products," she added.

But why do many calls from telemarketers remain unattended?  "Sometimes many people ignore calls from telemarketers because they have the habit of not picking up calls coming from unknown numbers," Dr Islam reasoned. 

Meanwhile, Chaldal's Nazimuddaula said, "Consumers who are less familiar or comfortable with using digital platforms or are too busy to browse digital platforms for shopping are more receptive to telemarketing."

Pinkey was more specific that people aged between 45 to 65 and beyond are most interested in telemarketing, as they are not much familiar with the habit of strolling through e-commerce sites. 

"People on a tight budget, as well as housewives, also listen to us attentively to see if they could buy any product from us at a relatively less price. 

"In general, female customers tend to talk with us more than male customers as the latter do not have much idea about which products they need in their home. Also, women usually don't lose their temper so quickly."

A women-dominated sector 

Historically, the majority of telemarketers were women. This is because there was a preconception that telemarketing is an easy job, and therefore requires only cheap labour. During those times, cheap labour jobs would predominantly employ women.

Times have changed now. Telemarketing is no longer considered an easy job. Still, women continue to dominate this sector, as it is widely believed that women are good telemarketers because they are by nature polite and well-mannered.

Tahani Jashim, who previously worked as a Sub-Assistant Manager, Marketing at PRAN-RFL Group and as a Specialist in Health Marketing and Communications at Healthport Bangladesh, agreed. "I also believe that women are more successful than men when it comes to telemarketing. Because customers tend to believe and ease up when the person on the opposite side of the phone is a female voice. They don't cut the call immediately," she said. 

Pinkey, another woman with vast experience in telemarketing and customer relations, reiterated the same. 

"People, be they male or female, feel more comfortable talking to female telemarketers. People also respond better to them, because they have comparatively more patience and read out every detail to the customers.

"As a result, female telemarketers bring more sales than their male counterparts," Pinkey added. 

The female-male ratio in the telemarketing sector, according to her, is 60-40. 

Any respite for annoyed customers?

While promotional calls come as a source of annoyance to many, there isn't much of a way out for them at the moment to avoid these calls, other than by simply ignoring the calls or blocking the numbers. 

Apparently, there is a 'Do Not Disturb' or 'DND' service introduced by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), using which people can stop messages sent by telecom operators promoting their products and services.

The BTRC statement in this regard states: "Mobile operators provide promotional SMS to promote various products and services. In many cases, receiving promotional SMS from customers seems to be annoying. In this case, customers can stop receiving their own promotional SMS by launching the Do Not Disturb (DND) service. 

"BTRC has instructed mobile operators to provide SMS at least once a month regarding the launch of the Do Not Disturb (DND) service so that customers can easily avail of DND service."

To activate the service, Grameenphone users have to dial *121*1101#, Banglalink users *121*8*6# and for Robi and Airtel it is *7#.

However, there aren't any specific directives in the country's existing law which would prevent people from receiving promotional calls from telemarketers. 

According to Raisul Sourav, an Assistant Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Law at Dhaka International University (DIU) and an Advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, the main intention of the 'DND' service was to protect people from undesired advertisements. 

"But telecom operators may take advantage of the lack of clarification in the language of BTRC's directives, which could undo their intention," he said. 

He further added, "There is a complaint system under BTRC (https://btrccrm.genexinfosys.com/cms/) where any customer can file a complaint against an operator. So, if anyone is aggrieved with telemarketing or promotional calls; s/he may file a complaint there."

But it should be noted that through the aforementioned link, customers can file a complaint against a telecom operator only [such as Banglalink, or Grameenphone], but not telemarketers directly. 

Arafat Hosen Khan, Barrister-at-Law, an Advocate at Bangladesh Supreme Court and also the Chairman of the Department of Law at North South University mentioned a directive from 2013 titled 'Instructions for Issuance of Enlistment Certificate for the Operation of BPO/Call Center (International and Domestic)' which regulates call centres. 

Section 8.3 of this Directive contains the condition "Enlisted entities shall take necessary measures to prevent objectionable, obscene, unauthorised or any other content, messages or communications infringing copyright, intellectual property etc., in any form, consistent with the established laws of the country. Once specific instances of such infringement are reported to the operator by the enforcement agencies, the operator shall ensure that the carriage of such material is prevented immediately."

Still, there isn't any directive regarding direct promotional calls from companies or organisations operating without any assistance from mobile operators. 

Zareen Rahman, Barrister-at-Law and an Advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, in this regard, said: "Telemarketing is one kind of marketing or advertisement. But the advertisement law in our country is very old. 

"So, the advertisement act in Bangladesh should also be amended to specify how mobile operators or companies can advertise their products through telecom services."