Why do telecom companies like Airtel and Reliance Jio provide a standard validity of 28 days or in multiples of 28 days despite the fact that an average month is 30 days?
It’s probably aligned with one of the 29 Psychological Tricks To Make You Buy More.
These tricks are used by some of the largest, most valuable and reputed companies on the planet. They leverage some of the inherent biases exhibited in consumer behavior.
It has worked considering the TELCO never said month but you made the connection with 30 days.
This is not legal advice but, as far as they use preexisting biases and don’t create them by their actions, these tricks could be totally kosher.
Coming to the reason, I wrote about this soon after I bought a Jio subscription four years ago. Let me copy-paste the relevant passage from my blog post published in 2017:
ONE EXTRA PAYMENT PER YEAR
As against the industry standard of 30 days, I noticed that Jio’s INR 303 topup plan had a validity period of 28 days. When I signed up for it, I didn’t think much of this. It was only after I came home and did a little math that I realized what Reliance Jio has done here: By trimming the validity period slightly – so slightly that most customers probably won’t notice it – Reliance Jio has created 13 payment periods per year (365 / 28 = 13.03) unlike other ISPs who get only 12 payments a year with their 30 day plans.
Well played Reliance Jio! Wonder if the company picked up this hack from Western Europe, where employees typically receive a 13th month salary as bonus each year.
Should the regulator object to this trick, it’s no skin off TELCOS’ back: They can easily go back to 30 days subscription with a slightly higher price. In the above example, it would work out to INR 303/28*30 = INR 325 / month.