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79 percent indians avoid unknown business calls, reveals Truecaller and Tata Tele Business Services report. ANI 07 Jul 2026, 20:01 GMT+ Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], July 7: Truecaller, the leading global communications platform, has released 'The State of Business Calling 2026' report, a comprehensive study on the role of voice calls as a customer engagement channel in India. Commissioned in partnership with Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS), with Kantar as the research partner, the insights of the report highlight that voice calls remain the most trusted and widely used channel for business communication in India. The report presents a striking paradox: 76 percent of consumers prefer calls over digital alternatives, yet 79 percent of businesses say customers actively avoid answering calls from unrecognized numbers. As digital touchpoints multiply, customers are becoming more selective about what they engage with. Voice is no longer being ignored - it is now being filtered. The study, conducted by Kantar, surveyed over 500 B2B businesses and 1,000 consumers across 17 cities in India, highlighting a defining shift in India's communication landscape. While digital channels are favored for speed, voice continues to dominate moments that require clarity (56 percent), reassurance, urgency, or high-stakes interactions. The study reveals that despite emerging as the most trusted channel for business communication, ahead of email, SMS, and chat combined, voice is witnessing a quiet erosion in trust. Spam, lack of context, inconsistent caller identity, and poorly timed outreach have created a default reluctance among consumers that affects even legitimate, compliant businesses. Priyam Bose, Global Head, Truecaller for Business GTM (Go To Market), said, 'India does not have a calling problem. It has a trust and attention problem. Consumers today expect to know who is calling, why they are calling, and whether it is worth their time. At Truecaller, we are focused on enabling verified identity and contextual communication to help businesses rebuild trust and improve engagement. Our report clearly reveals the opportunities for businesses to invest in the right customer experience.' Nearly 49 percent of consumers said the ability to schedule callbacks at a convenient time would significantly increase their willingness to engage with business calls, followed by clearer visibility into caller identity and purpose. Businesses, meanwhile, are prioritizing caller identity (64 percent), verification symbols, and call-purpose previews. The findings also reveal a critical misalignment between how businesses use voice and how they measure its effectiveness. While 41 percent businesses say trust and brand perception drive their decision to use it, the metrics they actually track tell a different story: Response Rate (72 percent), Time to Resolution (57 percent), and Cost per Interaction (53 percent) dominate scorecards. None of these capture what voice is delivering - higher CSAT (42 percent), stronger customer retention (36 percent), and emotional reassurance no automated channel can replicate. Voice is still being managed as a transactional channel and measured as a cost center, even though it functions as a relationship driver. While regulatory frameworks such as DLT and the use of 140 and 1600 number series aim to classify promotional and service calls, consumers may still receive essential service calls despite DND preferences, making recognisable identity and clear context critical to driving engagement. Vishal Rally, Chief Revenue Officer, Tata Teleservices, says, 'Voice remains an important channel for enterprise communication, particularly when immediacy and human connection matter most. As customer expectations evolve, businesses need secure, intelligent, and context-aware communication experiences. At TTBS, we are enabling enterprises with integrated voice and digital communication solutions that strengthen customer trust and engagement.' Voice continues to play a critical role across sectors where urgency, trust, or high-value decision-making are involved. BFSI and IT services rely heavily on voice for verification and compliance workflows, while e-commerce and logistics increasingly use voice alongside digital channels to manage transactional and support communication. About TruecallerTruecaller is an essential part of everyday communication for 500 million active users worldwide, with more than one billion downloads since launch and 68 billion spam and fraud calls identified in 2025 alone. The company is headquartered in Stockholm and has been publicly listed on Nasdaq Stockholm since October 2021. For more information, visit www.truecaller.com. About Tata TeleservicesTata Teleservices Limited along with its subsidiary Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited (NSE: TTML, BSE: 532371) (Tata Teleservices) is a growing market leader in the Enterprise space. It offers a comprehensive portfolio of Connectivity, Collaboration, Cloud & SaaS, Security, and Marketing solutions for businesses in the country under the brand name Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS). Tata Teleservices has an extensive, high quality and robust wireline network and offers its products and services in more than 60 cities across India. Tata Teleservices has one of the largest enterprise-focused teams in the industry with deep customer engagement and technology orientation offering focused sales and service experience to customers. Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited is listed on BSE and NSE in India. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.)

JioStar 'The Winning Edge' playbook: new brands see up to 6.9x higher brand awareness on live cricket. March 27, 2026 JioStar released The Winning Edge, a first-of-its-kind advertising playbook designed to help brands and media buyers unlock the full potential of live cricket as a marketing platform. Drawing from billions of impression-level data points across marquee cricket properties and validated through Brand Lift Studies conducted by Kantar, the playbook moves beyond conventional wisdom to deliver data-backed, outcome-driven guidance for advertisers. The playbook establishes cricket on JioStar as an unmatched environment for brand growth. For new brands entering the market, advertising on live cricket on JioStar delivered up to 6.9x higher brand awareness and 10.8x higher purchase intent compared to Kantar norms. Established brands fared equally strongly, recording up to 4x higher brand awareness and up to 4.9x higher purchase intent - underscoring cricket's power as both a launchpad and a long-term growth engine. Multi-screen advantage. One of the playbook's most significant findings relates toplatform strategy. Brands that activated across Linear TV (LTV),Connected TV (CTV), and Mobile simultaneously recorded upto 7x higher purchase intent than those present on a single platform - with less than 10% audience overlap across screens, signalling strong incremental reach. Combining video and display formats further amplified impact, with brands running both seeing up to 7.4x higher brand awareness compared to video-only campaigns. Sponsorship outperforms inventory buys. The data makes a compelling case for sponsorship over standalone inventory purchases. Brands with formal sponsorships recorded up to 9x higher purchase intent and up to 8x higher ad awareness compared to those buying inventory alone. Additionally, brands that added PPL (Pre- Post-Live) studio programming to their live media mix saw an incremental up to 2.1x in aided awareness - demonstrating the value of extended brand presence around the live match. Capitalizing on high-impact match moments. The playbook identifies four key in-match moments that deliver disproportionate brand salience - Super 4s, Super 6s, DRS (Decision Review System), and Fall of Wickets (FOW). Brands that incorporated these moments into their asset mix recorded uplifts ranging from 4x to 9x in salience, 4x to 10x in awareness, and 4x to 7x in brand recall - making contextual, moment-led advertising a critical lever for maximising impact. Anup Govindan, Head of Sales, Sports, JioStar, said, "The Winning Edge, developed in partnership with Kantar, is built on rigorous, data-backed analysis of how real brands have performed on our platform across categories, objectives, budgets, formats, and tournament phases. "The study reaffirms that when it comes to driving real outcomes such as awareness, consideration, and purchase intent, nothing matches the intensity, scale, and impact of live cricket. The depth of attention and emotional engagement during live moments creates a multiplier effect that non-live environments simply cannot replicate," Govindan said. Soumya Mohanty, MD and Chief Client & Solutions Officer at Kantar South Asia, said, "Numerous Kantar Brand Lift Studies have demonstrated the incremental impact of Live Cricket Advertising, with results consistently ranking at the topend of Kantar's Brand Lift database. This playbook distils those insights into actionable media planning and creative recommendations to help advertisers drive stronger outcomes in Live Cricket environments." - With live cricket commanding the largest, most engaged audiences in Indian media, the opportunity for brands has never been greater. The Winning Edge sets a new standard for how advertisers approach sports marketing in India: not with assumptions, but with evidence; not with presence alone, but with intent.