Telecom operators: Focus on how companies satisfy subscribers

CMOs provide training to customer care staff, educate people about services.

LAHORE:

With the increased penetration of cellular mobile operators all across Pakistan, the subscribers have become matured enough to rank and choose the mobile operator depending on the quality of services, back-end support and customer care facilities.

As the telecom industry diversifies after the 3G/4G rollout, the stakeholders are now focusing heavily on providing training to their customer care staff both in the call centres and franchises in order to tackle complaints in an appropriate manner.

In addition to this, the telecom firms are also focusing on educating customers to give them a basic understanding about the service which they are inquiring about.

“Experience is going to define the telcos’ future, the diversification has changed the whole scenario for them,” said Aamir Atta, an industry expert.

The future of telecom companies will be based on how they handle the subscribers, the one who handles the subscribers well will likely get more clients, he added.

The total number of mobile subscribers, according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s annual report, reached 139.9 million as of June 2014.

Telcos these days are competing neck-and-neck in providing services, features and affordable packages to the subscribers.

“Regardless of the market share, we are concerned with this segment as one unsatisfied customer could subtract 100 customers, whereas one satisfied customer may add another 10 customers,” said an official of a telecom company while talking to The Express Tribune.

Telcos now have started a customer feedback system in order to know their back-end support and customer care experiences. In the end, it is the number of complaints being handled successfully to examine the performance, he added.

The PTA annual report reveals that a total of 7,372 complaints were received against Telenor, which is 33% of the total CMO-related complaints. Ufone, despite, being the fourth biggest operator subscriber wise, had 4,513 complaints against its various services, which make up 20% of the total complaints.

Mobilink, which had the biggest share in complaints during the last few years, dropped to the third spot with only 4,224 complaints (19%) during FY2014.

Zong has 16% share of the total complaints as 3,510 complaints were received by the authority against the operator.

Warid, the smallest operator in the cellular market, also had the smallest share of only 2,602 complaints, 12% of the total complaints.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 12^th,  2015.

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