Of Escalators, Lifts And USSD Top-ups
Have you ever been on a phone call in a no man’s land and ran out of credit?
Of course this was absolutely no fault of yours as the call was just so interesting or engaging that it ran your credit out.
The call is to be blamed.
Well, I have been in such situations one too many, and so had been my friend — Chinyere, an upwardly mobile working class Lagos babe.
She was headed to the other side of Lagos, after closing late from work for her friend’s bridal shower or rather what was left of the bridal showers, and right there in the middle of third mainland bridge, after a bout hiss, a cough and another hiss from her car, the car suddenly gave up the ghost.
Overcome with agitation and hysteria, she frantically got on the phone to call her mechanic:
“hello Mr Waheed, my car just broke down on ………”
She had barely told him where she was when she ran out of airtime.
Perplexed and with confused feelings running through her, she did a mental check of the options she could use to get air time to continue the call:
Her first option was to go to the nearest recharge seller and buy credit — the was practically impossible as she would have to trek halfway down the bridge leaving her and her car exposed to grave danger and with not guarantee of getting where to buy.
Her second option would be to use her bank’s internet banking service — this also was not an option because she just exhausted her data plan preparing for her friends bridal shower
Her third option was to use her bank’s “* number number number #” code
She dialed the required “* number number number #” and pushed the enter button, however, rather than getting a recharge, she got an alert saying she doesn’t have sufficient balance to use the USSD top up service.
At this point my friend Chinyere couldn’t help it any longer.
She didn’t know the USSD had a cost attached to it. She had always just used it, enjoying the convenience and speed without noticing that a small fee was required.
And that is how a lift fails.
You use a lift to get you to your desired floor, but on the occasion that the lift isn’t functional, IT IS ABSOLUTELY USELESS, YOU DON’T GET TO USE IT AT ALL.
You have to find an alternative outside of it.
Not so with an Escalator.
When an Escalator malfunctions, you simply march up on it. It still delivers value; the only difference is that you have to expend more energy. YOUR ALTERNATIVE IS WITHIN THAT ESCALATOR.
Chinyere had to resort to borrowing credit from her Telco, after which she used USSD to recharge her phone. She was more than willing to pay the levy that comes with using her Telco’s borrow- me-credit service.
In the present design of USSD airtime top-up, your bank requires that you have sufficient credit upfront to make a connection to the service. This is irrespective of the fact that you have a good sum in your account. You don’t get any value if you don’t have sufficient balance on your phone. Lift!
The USSD airtime top-up should rather be designed
1. To work when the customer has sufficient credit on his phone to take the fee upfront
2. To work when the customer doesn’t have sufficient credit on his phone. In this case, the service should connect to his bank top-up, his phone and take the fee. The fee could be two times the normal fee. So long as it is less than the borrow me credit alternative.
With this design/flow, the customer always gets value. Escalator.
