What the competition needs to do to beat Safaricom

Recently the giant orange bowed out of the Kenyan market owing to the “hostile” market that is the Kenyan telecommunications industry. Orange now joins other players who tried but failed to keep up with the dominant giant that is Safaricom. This list includes Celtel, Zain, Yu (Essar) and Kencel. This raises a lot of concern in a country that seems not to be in its toes when it comes to curbing anti-competitive campaign by the “dominant” agencies.

We have all heard of how EABL have frustrated keroche breweries and of the scandals of Cocacola and Softa. What, however, makes things for the other telecoms vs safaricom very tricky to determine an anti-competition trend is how they operate, the marketing campaigns and their products and services.

If Telkom the newest…scratch that an old giant now rerisen, it will have to do things differently from its predecessor.

1.products and services

It’s this that is the main weak point of Safaricom. Maximizing on this will allow Telkom, Airtel or Equitel to create a niche in the telecoms market. Every time Airtel initiated a price war Airtel would get a list of new subscribers because Safaricom’s products weren't as attractive as those offered by Airtel. By this we mean Products and services that do matter, not like airtel’s. (I am an airtel user but you will see me ranting about airtel throughout this article). Every time I load credit over ksh 5000 ($50) using airtel I receive ksh 1000 ($10) as bonus credit. The ksh 5000 is worth 1666 minutes and the the bonus 1000 is worth 333 minutes. That’s a good deal right but wait there is a catch. You can only use the bonus airtime time for that day only, after which you go back to using the regular credit. Also this “deal” seems to only be available for the big spenders of credit and not the usual $10 a month users.

I believe that a deal should encourage everyone to use your service and not alienate a sub-group of people.

Telkom should provide an all-encompassing product, one that touches on 3 key areas:

1. Talk time

2. SMS

3. Data

They should have a product that includes these 3 products. The other networks are doing it, safaricom have the flex bundle, airtel has the unliminet. The trick is to introduce a product that touches the 3 classes of people using your products, the lower, middle and upper user classes. Airtel has the ksh 500 ($5), ksh 1000 ($10) and ksh 2000 ($20) a month unliminet data bundles.

Also, when it comes to talk time and sms I have noticed a new dangerous trend by the networks. Where they give people bundles where they can call same networks free but other networks at a reduced cost e.g Airtel’s tubonge and Telkom’s holla. So airtel to airtel is free (but recently this was reduced to 100 minutes) but to other networks it ksh 1.8. I’m I the only who thinks this is idiotic? First majority of the users are on Safricom, you know, the “other” network.

Thing is when I switched to airtel and I started using unliminet, people started asking me what’s new with airtel and why did I make the switch. Soon people started switching even my own mother and sisters switched. Point is if you are giving 100 minutes of talk time let it be to all networks, if you limit only to your own people wont bite.

2.Customer Service.

I will not fault Telkom or equitel here. Their customer Care representatives are polite and knowledgeable about the business. Airtel however are a joke. I am pretty sure that the main reason Airtel doesn’t have and are losing users is due to this fact. Airtel have the worst customer service, hands down, that I have ever seen. From the airtel shops, to their call centers and how they handle customer complaints.

Once I bought a postpaid line from airtel, the customer care rep told me it will be ready in 24 hours. I got on a bus and travelled back to my rural home. 48 hours later the line wasn't active, so decided to call the customer care. This is where the issue starts. The lady acknowledges the issue that the order has been issued but the line hasn't yet been activated (outsourced Customer representative). I had to go back to the airtel shop which is now 162km away since they are the only ones handling my issue(inability). I told her that will not be possible since its far, maybe she could give me the number of that particular airtel shop and request they handle my issue but she said they don’t have the number (lack of Co-ordination). In the end, 2 days later after call and call I had to go back to Nairobi to have issue sorted. Later on, I came to find out that the main reason why the call center lady couldn't help me or give me the number of the airtel shop was because Airtel has outsourced this service.

How can you outsource your call center? It’s almost like you are saying you don’t care about your customers. I believe this act deeply affects the operations of airtel. Look at how people are confident about Safaricom and MPESA. Even I don’t have that level of confidence with Airtel money and Airtel as a network. There have been cases of user’s trying to withdraw money from airtel money and when the agent doesn’t get a message informing him of the money coming into his account the sender loses his/ her money. What’s worse is that if you call the customer service they tell you that resolving the issue can take even a month. Safaricom on the other end deal with these issues fast. They can even reverse the transactions.

3.Employees Motivation

This is another key area where Airtel fails too. Richard Branson once said,

“If you take care of your employees they will take care of your customers”.

Clearly Airtel didn't get the memo. I once went to an Airtel shop and asked for assistance and the lady didn't even take eyes from her as she responded. This in my opinion was a discipline and motivation issue. Either they don’t pay there staff that well all the rate of employee change (termination) is too high.

Going to airtel you can see this. First is they hire too many foreigners in management positions. There is nothing more de-motivating than being asked to train a foreigner, boss for a position that you are clearly qualified for and should be yours. Secondly the outsourcing of jobs means that employees will be reduced and the remaining employees over worked. In 2015 I went to airtel headquarters and they had offices all over the Airtel house. Along the way they have outsourced this IBM and Com viva. In June 2017 I went there and they now only occupied only 2 floors.

Safaricom on the other end pays their employees very well. They have also adopted many ways to keep motivation high. Sometime back airtel and Safaricom talk time was ksh 10 ($0.1) per minute. Airtel dropped the costs to ksh 3 and soon began a price war. A lot of people switched from Safaricom to airtel including my friend Tim. Thing is Tim’s sister works at Safaricom, the moment he migrated to Airtel he and the sister quarreled and she refused to talk to him. That is employees motivation Airtel, emulate.

To be continued….