eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
Econet Wireless Zimbabwe has launched a multi-purpose web self-care service that will give its customers control of their line account profiles. The service will also allow customers to provision services on their own — including monitoring their airtime and data usage, viewing their call history and transferring airtime.
Econet COO Fayaz King said the web-based self-service would further improve customer experience by empowering customers to perform and initiate several tasks without calling the company’s customer contact centres or visiting Econet Shops.
“The web-based selfcare service is just another example of how we will continue to exploit our digital platforms to improve the customer experience to save time and money for our customers, and drastically simplify things as far as their use of our products and services is concerned,” said King.
“It will change the way our customers interact with us in that it will empower them to do most of the things they would only be able to do by visiting our shops or calling our call centre.
“Customers will have the convenience of having direct access to their balances, being able to transfer airtime, check their call history, activate or deactivate content and value-added services, and be able to change their PUK (Pin Unlock Key) numbers on their own, without calling for assistance from Econet.”
Econet Wireless boasts of over 10 million connected customers, offering a wide range of voice, data, content, media, as well as mobile money services.
Industry data shows that the company’s popular EcoCash mobile money service is used by more than 19 out of every 20 customers nationwide, and is in partnership with over 26 000 active agents and merchants countrywide. The mobile telecoms firm’s chief customer experience officer Otis Makahamadze said the size of the business has given rise to the need to ensure that its millions of customers are served in an efficient, quick and smart way.
“Although we have the biggest contact centre in the country, we are more than cognizant of the fact that with the size of our customer base, we must always be thinking of ways and means to better serve those customers.
“That’s why, instead of the customers calling us, or coming to our shops, we have devised a solution to take the services to them, by offering the web selfcare service.”
A telecoms expert, who declined to be named, said the move by Econet to offer several of the services offered by its call centre and shops, would ease pressure on its service centres and de-congesting its outlets.
“It’s a smart move by Econet which will ease pressure on their call centres, leaving the service centres and shops to deal with the long and really serious cases. Over time this service will clear their shops from being congested by people in need of simple support issues, such as PIN and PUK resets, who tend to crowd out customers wanting to make product purchases,” he said.
This is the second similar move by the mobile telecoms operator. Last month, Econet introduced an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven customer support — ‘Bud-e’.
