DND Policy and the Textprenueur

Introduction

The Do Not Disturb policy was introduced by the Nigerian Communications Commission, effective 1st July 2016. The policy which is aimed at restricting communication operators and others in the industry from sending unsolicited messages to members of the public, is mostly relevant to MTN network. The policy has been in effect since its introduction and has negatively affected the bulk SMS business.

Meaning of Do-Not-Disturb ServiceThe Do-Not-Disturb service allows MTN customers to opt out of receiving promotional messages for 3rd Party services (Bulk SMS, VAS promos, etc.). This is in compliance with the directives of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). Exceptions to this are financial institutions who still are allowed to send notifications to their customers when needed.

Main features of DND?
The service features the following:
a. Fully Blocked mode allowing customers to Opt Out totally from receiving promotional messages via SMS and IVR.
b. Partially Blocked mode allowing customers to filter service categories for promotional messages they wish to receive. Any category not selected is blocked.

View StatusActivate full blocking
Activate partial blocking

How to Opt out of DND
The following SMS keywords can be used to set your DND preference. A customer will be able to perform the following DND activities via SMS

Simply text HELP to the short code 2442 to find out more. Or text any of the following to 2442 to perform the corresponding tasks:

ALLOW: To receive all SMS and IVR messages
SMS 1: To receive Banking / Insurance/ Financial Products SMS
SMS 2: To receive Real Estate SMS and IVR messages
SMS 3: To receive Education SMS and IVR messages
SMS 4: To receive Health SMS and IVR messages
SMS 5: To receive Consumer goods & Automobiles SMS and IVR messages
SMS 6: To receive Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT SMS and IVR messages
SMS 7: To receive Tourism & Leisure SMS and IVR messages
SMS 8: To receive Sports SMS and IVR messages
SMS 9: To receive Religion SMS and IVR messages STOP: To stop all SMS and IVR messages 

STATUS: To check your DND status

ALLOW: To deactivate DND

Cost of DND Subscription
The service is free to customers.

MTN services and DND Policy

The DND service has only been introduced for 3rd party services e.g. VAS, Bulk SMS etc. The operator e.i. MTN exempted itself from this policy. That is why even when you have fully stopped all SMS and IVR messages, you still receive messages from MTN and other network providers, whose SIM you are using. 

DND and Textprenueurs

The introduction of the DND policy  in Nigeria dealt an under-belt to a once-booming industry. The bulk SMS venture became attractive to young entrepreneurs due to its many business advantages. The business can be kick-started with very little capital; requires minimal technical background; is very flexible to manage; to a greater extent requires more online presence than offline, thereby eliminating in most case a physical business office; etc. 

However, the DND policy has greatly reduced the delivery rate to the phone numbers of members of the public who are the targets of such messages, to almost less than 50% in extreme cases. What this means is that if you dispatched messages to 100 phone numbers, less than 50 will reach the target physical device (the phone). The development has led to many users searching for other alternatives. The most painful of  the whole issue is that the bulk SMS portal gets charged for the messages that were not delivered. 

Although there have been efforts by major stakeholders in the industry to provide solutions to filter non-DND phone numbers before dispatch, there is still a wide information gap between the customers and the SMS portals. While the customer is unsatisfied with poor service rendered (and in some cases, rightly, demands for refund), the portal incurs losses both in patronage and image. 

It is worthy to request that pending the emergence of a widely-accepted solution to completely stopping unsolicited messaging, the exclusion list be expanded to include other users who have genuine business, religious, medical or essential reasons to engage the services of Bulk Messaging. Until this is done, the textprenueur is an endangered species.