Customer Preference Registration Process In DLT
TRAI is in the process of enforcing DLT SMS regulatory framework for the Bulk SMS Service Industry. As per the prescribed TRAI guidelines stated in the official notification, customers have been given the right to set SMS receiving preference, add or revoke consent, or set specific preference based on time or day. These new regulations provides complete freedom to the end customers for allowing or withdrawing the messages as per their desired specifications. The DLT Bulk SMS Guidelines are aimed at bringing transparency in the unorganized industry and prevent the occurrence of illicit activities.
Establishment of Customer Preference Registration Facility (CPRF)
Every Access Provider will have to establish Customer Preference Registration Facility (CPRF) and make required provisions to assist its customers at all times.
Following are the roles and responsibilities of Access Providers in Customer Preference Registration Facility (CPRF)
- To provide guidance to give consent or withdraw consent regarding Commercial Communications and set SMS receiving preferences based on
- Preference of categories of Commercial Communication
- Preference of the Mode of Communication
- Preference of Time Band and Types of Day of the week including Public and National holidays
- To enable customers to register, modify or de-register preferences from any of the following options:
- Sending SMS to short code 1909 or
- Calling on 1909 or
- Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) or
- Sending USSD or
- Authorized Mobile App
- Web portal with authentication through OTP
- Any other method prescribed by the official Authority
- To process the request made by the customer for registering, modifying, or de-registering the preference.
It is the responsibility of every Access Provider to ensure that the preferences registered or modified by the subscriber are processed in real-time and in such a manner that commercial communication sent subsequently to the subscriber should not violate the set preferences. The implementation of the preferences should be within 24 hours or as per the time range prescribed by the Authority.
Procedure for Preference Registration
1. Process for registering or modifying Preference of Content Category for Commercial Communication
(A) Customer can opt-out for any or all of the following Commercial Communication Content Categories:
| Commercial Communication Category to be blocked | IVRS: Call to 1909 and press at prompt to block | SMS: Send SMS to 1909 following text | USSD: Dial USSD string |
|---|---|---|---|
| All CC Categories (to be blocked) except transactional type of commercial communications | 0 | FULLY BLOCK | *1909*0# |
| All CC Categories (to be blocked) except transactional and service type of commercial communications | 50 | BLOCK PROMO | *1909*50# |
| (i) Banking/Insurance/Financial products/credit cards | 1 | BLOCK 1 | *1909*1# |
| (ii) Real Estate | 2 | BLOCK 2 | *1909*2# |
| (iii) Education | 3 | BLOCK 3 | *1909*3# |
| (iv) Health | 4 | BLOCK 4 | *1909*4# |
| (v) Consumer goods and automobiles | 5 | BLOCK 5 | *1909*5# |
| (vi)Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT | 6 | BLOCK 6 | *1909*6# |
| (vii) Tourism and Leisure | 7 | BLOCK 7 | *1909*7# |
| (viii) Food and Beverages | 8 | BLOCK 8 | *1909*8# |
Explanation:
The preference to opt-out of the commercial communications should be conveyed to the customer by the customer care executive. Also, the customer should be informed about the available options to unblock, confirmation and the final status of the request.
FULLY BLOCKED: If customers choose the Fully Blocked option, then the service and promotional category commercial communication messages will be completely blocked and will not be delivered to them.
BLOCK PROMO: Block Promo will block only the promotional types of commercial communications for all categories of content, mode, time band and day. Service and transactional types of messages are excluded from this option and will be sent to the customers respectively.
Important Note
If the customer has chosen the ‘FULLY BLOCK’ option, then only the OTP SMS from Banks will get delivered and all Service category messages such as order updates, payment alerts, and other informative notifications will not be delivered. Therefore, we advice you to not to chose the ‘FULLY BLOCK’ option as you will not be able to get the notification of important messages such as amount debited/credited, payment confirmations, booking updates and other vital SMS and alerts.
We suggest our users to opt for ‘BLOCK PROMO’ option if they do not wish to receive promotional messages. If you chose ‘BLOCK PROMO’, then you will only receive informative SMS and no promotional or marketing messages will be delivered to you.
(B) Customer can opt-in for any or all of the following Commercial Communication Content Categories:
| UCC Category to be unblocked or opted in | IVRS: Call to 1909 and press at prompt to unblock | SMS to 1909 following text | USSD send |
|---|---|---|---|
| All UCC Categories (to be unblocked) | 90 | UNBLOCK ALL | *#1909*90# |
| All UCC Categories (to be unblocked) except Promotional | 51 | UNBLOCK SERVICE | *#1909*51# |
| (i) Banking/Insurance/Financial products/credit cards | 91 | UNBLOCK 91 | *#1909*91# |
| (ii) Real Estate | 92 | UNBLOCK 92 | *#1909*92# |
| (iii) Education | 93 | UNBLOCK 93 | *#1909*93# |
| (iv) Health | 94 | UNBLOCK 94 | *#1909*94# |
| (v) Consumer goods and automobiles | 95 | UNBLOCK 95 | *#1909*95# |
| (vi)Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT | 96 | UNBLOCK 96 | *#1909*96# |
| (vii) Tourism and Leisure | 97 | UNBLOCK 97 | *#1909*97# |
| (viii) Food and Beverages | 98 | UNBLOCK 98 | *#1909*98# |
Explanation:
The preference to opt-in of the commercial communication should be conveyed to the to the customer by the customer care executive. Also, the customer should be informed about the available options to block, confirmation and the final status of the request.
UNBLOCK ALL: This option will unblock all content categories, mode, time band and day types.
UNBLOCK 51: Unblock 51 will unblock commercial communications for all categories of content, mode, time band and day types except the promotional message category.
2. Process for registering or modifying Preference of Time band for Commercial Communication
(A) Customer can opt-out for any or all of the following time bands for receiving Commercial Communications:
| UCC Time Band for Communication | IVRS: Call to 1909 and press at prompt to block | SMS: Send SMS to 1909 following text | USSD: Dial USSD String |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Time Bands (to be blocked) | 20 | BLOCK 20 | *1909*20# |
| (i) 00:00 Hrs to 06:00 Hrs | 21 | BLOCK 21 | *1909*11# |
| (ii) 06:00 Hrs to 08:00 Hrs | 22 | BLOCK 22 | *1909*22# |
| (iii) 08:00 Hrs to 10:00 Hrs | 23 | BLOCK 23 | *1909*23# |
| (iv) 10:00 Hrs to 12:00 Hrs | 24 | BLOCK 24 | *1909*24# |
| (v) 12:00 Hrs to 14:00 Hrs | 25 | BLOCK 25 | *1909*25# |
| (vi) 14:00 Hrs to 16:00 Hrs | 26 | BLOCK 26 | *1909*26# |
| (vii) 16:00 Hrs to 18:00 Hrs | 27 | BLOCK 27 | *1909*27# |
| (viii) 18:00 Hrs to 21:00 Hrs | 28 | BLOCK 28 | *1909*28# |
| (ix) 21:00 Hrs to 24:00 Hrs | 29 | BLOCK 29 | *1909*29# |
Explanation:
By default, time bands (i), (ii), (iii) and (ix) displayed in the above table will be inapplicable for all customers unless a customer has registered preference for receiving messages on these time bands.
BLOCK 20: This option will block all categories of modes except the transactional commercial communications.
(B) Customer can opt-in for any or all of the following time bands for receiving Commercial Communications:
| UCC Time Band for Communication | IVRS: Call to 1909 and press at prompt to block | SMS: Send SMS to 1909 following text | USSD: Dial USSD String |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Time Bands (to be unblocked) | 70 | UNBLOCK 70 | *1909*70# |
| (i) 00:00 Hrs to 06:00 Hrs | 71 | UNBLOCK 71 | *1909*71# |
| (ii) 06:00 Hrs to 08:00 Hrs | 72 | UNBLOCK 72 | *1909*72# |
| (iii) 08:00 Hrs to 10:00 Hrs | 73 | UNBLOCK 73 | *1909*73# |
| (iv) 10:00 Hrs to 12:00 Hrs | 74 | UNBLOCK 74 | *1909*74# |
| (v) 12:00 Hrs to 14:00 Hrs | 75 | UNBLOCK 75 | *1909*75# |
| (vi) 14:00 Hrs to 16:00 Hrs | 76 | UNBLOCK 76 | *1909*76# |
| (vii) 16:00 Hrs to 18:00 Hrs | 77 | UNBLOCK 77 | *1909*77# |
| (viii) 18:00 Hrs to 21:00 Hrs | 78 | UNBLOCK 78 | *1909*78# |
| (ix) 21:00 Hrs to 24:00 Hrs | 79 | UNBLOCK 79 | *1909*79# |
Explanation:
UNBLOCK 20: This option will unblock all categories of time bands which were blocked previously by the customer.
3. Process for registering or modifying Preference of Day types for Commercial Communication
(A) Customer can opt-out of any or all of following day types:
| UCC Day Type for receiving Communication | IVRS: Call to 1909 and press at prompt to block | SMS: Send SMS to 1909 following text | USSD: Dial USSD String |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Day Types (to be blocked) | 30 | BLOCK 30 | *1909*30# |
| (i) Monday | 31 | BLOCK 31 | *1909*31# |
| (ii) Tuesday | 32 | BLOCK 32 | *1909*32# |
| (iii) Wednesday | 33 | BLOCK 33 | *1909*33# |
| (iv) Thursday | 34 | BLOCK 34 | *1909*34# |
| (v) Friday | 35 | BLOCK 35 | *1909*35# |
| (vi) Saturday | 36 | BLOCK 36 | *1909*36# |
| (vii) Sunday | 37 | BLOCK 37 | *1909*37# |
| (viii) Public Holiday and National Holiday | 38 | BLOCK 38 | *1909*38# |
BLOCK 30: This option will block commercial communication for all days. Transactional messages will not be blocked and will be sent irrespective of the set preferences.
(B) Customer can opt-in of any or all of following day types:
| Day Types for receiving Commercial Communications | IVRS: Call to 1909 and press at prompt to block | SMS: Send SMS to 1909 following text | USSD: Dial USSD String |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Day Types (to be unblocked) | 60 | UNBLOCK 60 | *1909*60# |
| (i) Monday | 61 | UNBLOCK 61 | *1909*61# |
| (ii) Tuesday | 62 | UNBLOCK 62 | *1909*62# |
| (iii) Wednesday | 63 | UNBLOCK 63 | *1909*63# |
| (iv) Thursday | 64 | UNBLOCK 64 | *1909*64# |
| (v) Friday | 65 | UNBLOCK 65 | *1909*65# |
| (vi) Saturday | 66 | UNBLOCK 66 | *1909*66# |
| (vii) Sunday | 67 | UNBLOCK 67 | *1909*67# |
| (viii) Public Holiday and National Holiday | 68 | UNBLOCK 68 | *1909*68# |
UNBLOCK 60: This will unblock commercial communications for days which were blocked previously.
As soon as customers register their preferences, Access Providers will have to record those preferences on the Distributed Ledger for Preferences (DL-Preference) within 15 minutes of receiving the request. In addition to the DL-Preference Ledger, the details of consent and its revocation will be maintained in a Distributed Ledger for Consent (DL-Consent).
The TRAI DLT Guidelines 2020 are aimed to provide 100% transparency and security in the Bulk SMS sector as new the regulation grants complete control to the end user for setting preference, giving consent and managing content.