We took 200 leads — the same 200, from the same source, in the same Mumbai pin codes — and called them all twice. Once from a Jio SIM via the GrowYu Android app. Once from a cloud-based telephony stack. Same script, same time of day, the same week. Here are the numbers.
This question comes up on every prospect call we do: “Does it matter where the call comes from?” Our answer was always “yes, by a lot” — but we never had clean data to point at. Now we do.
The setup
200 leads from a real customer’s IndiaMart inflow, randomised, split into two arms of 100 each. Two reps from the same team, both with three years of experience, swapped halfway through to control for skill. Each lead was called once; no callbacks counted. A call is “connected” if a human answered for ≥ 5 seconds. Dropped, voicemail, and “user busy” don’t count.
The numbers
| Channel | Calls placed | Connected | Connect rate | Median ring-time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SIM-dial (Jio) | 100 | 51 | 51% | 2.3 rings |
| Cloud telephony | 100 | 23 | 23% | 4.7 rings |
Why the gap is real
Three things drive most of the delta:
- Carrier spam-flagging. Cloud-routed calls hit the Indian network with origin signatures that look like outbound call-centres. Carriers route them through spam filters; a fraction get a “Suspected Spam” banner on the recipient’s screen.
- Local-number trust. A normal Jio number rings like a friend’s call. A 4-digit cloud DID rings like a survey.
- Recipient device behaviour. On Android, recent system updates dim cloud-origin caller IDs by default; SIM-origin calls stay normal.
“But cloud telephony is cheaper per minute.”
It is — until you account for the calls that don’t connect. At 23% vs 51%, the cloud route costs ~2.2× more per connected call, before you factor in the reps’ time spent dialling dead numbers.
The math for a 10-rep team
A typical rep dials ~80 leads a day. At 51%, that’s 41 connected calls. At 23%, it’s 18. For a 10-rep team, the gap is ~230 extra conversations a day. Even if half of those are “not interested,” the other half are pipeline.
Caveats
- Single carrier (Jio). Airtel and Vi look similar in smaller tests we’ve run, but not identical.
- Lead source matters — IndiaMart leads are warmer than cold prospecting lists.
- The reps knew it was a test. We tried to control by mixing in normal-day calls, but bias can’t be ruled out completely.
What this means if you’re picking a CRM
Ask the vendor a single question: “Does your dialer ring from my SIM, or from a server somewhere?” If the answer is “from a server” — that’s fine, but build it into your connect-rate expectations. If the answer is “from your SIM” — that’s the modern playbook for Indian tele-sales, and you can find the same numbers above.
We obviously prefer SIM-dial. We built our app around it. But “we prefer it” isn’t evidence; this is.