As in integral and integrating philosophy, customer obsession is not only one of the four pillars of our Spirit of Safaricom culture, but is a key part of our social and relationship capitals. It is central to the way we do business, in that it drives our quest to meet the needs of our customers in digitally, relevantly and affordably promoting the identity of the brand as one that provides a superior product and service experience, while internally underpinning our strategic imperative of new growth areas.

Customer obsession thus stands at the core of our business, and we work to embed it among all our employees, to better deliver our brand promise of Simple, Transparent, Honest. We do this in terms of a framework centred on:

*For more on these areas of our business, click here and here respectively.

Our customer obsession strategy

Our customer obsession strategic journey has comprised three phases:

  • FY2022: Phase 1 – to establish the foundations for ensuring that we are a customer-obsessed organisation
  • FY2023: Phase 2 – to embed and anchor customer obsession
  • FY2024: Phase 3 – to entrench customer obsession as a way
    of working

Accordingly, our strategic focus during the year was on examining our processes, the ways in which we operate, and our structure to ensure that they fully facilitate putting the customer first, and that there are governance structures in place to underpin the approach, and drive ownership.

To aid us in measuring our progress, we employ key performance indicators (KPIs) that are aligned with, and support, the company’s business strategy.

KPI Indicator
Net Promoter Score (NPS) #1 Benchmark, jNPS (40pts baseline)
Brand love +3pts, Consumer 63%
Detractors <6%
Customer Obsession Score 87%
M-PESA downtime <4 hours
Fraud prevented 91%
System uptime/availability 99.95%

Our consumer business

Customer obsession in our consumer business* during the year under review, was predicated on:

  • Enhancing value through:
    • Integrated propositions for connectivity and content
    • Enhanced experiences through dignified journeys via apps and 5G
    • 30.3% growth in all-in-one plans following the Go Monthly promotion
    • Offers on integrated for as low as KShs 20 under Shine Kenya Bundles
    • Delivered simple DIY post-pay journey
    • Use of Machine Learning to deliver personalised offers
    • Launched Innovative Cluster Based CVM Platform that delivers differentiated value at a site level
  • Leveraging on:
    • Accelerated 4G device penetration through our device financing programme
    • Strategic partnerships to drive relevance, including with Google, Meta, TikTok and ShowMax
    • Our vast network of customer experience touchpoints
  • Demonstrating value by:
    • Protecting the base with relevant voice offers
    • Innovation via digital gamification to drive acquisitions
    • Providing integrated propositions to accelerate growth.
  • Accelerated 4G+ Devices
    • 17.5 million 4G+ devices on the network
    • Open market support with mobile data bundles
    • Over 1.3 million customers supported with a device under
      Lipa Mdogo Mdogo
    • Launched new Neon Smarta and Neon Ultra to enable
      4G affordability
  • Consumer segmentation driving personalisation and relevance
    • 4.5 million youth on Safaricom hook platform accessing
      propositions
    • Over 50% of base using Tunukiwa personalised offers,
      Okoa (call completion), reverse call, Bonga points (loyalty
      programme) innovations
    • Over 1,000 customers engaged in networking event on
      financial wellness

The challenges we faced in FY2024*

*For more on our operating environment, material matters and risk management, click here, here and here respectively.

Looking ahead

In the short-, medium- and long-term, we will continue to promote our customer-first culture. To this end we have completed a six-year strategy to guide us to the year 2030.

In the short term we will focus on fixing the basics in order to meet customer expectations. The aim will be to become the customer experience leader in Africa by leveraging on artificial intelligence (AI) to enable effective delivery of the customer journeys we envisage. This will include, from an internal perspective, the building of a customer experience governance framework.

We also continue to evolve our agency network into franchise outlets, and repurposing the dealer ecosystem by ensuring digitisation.

In the medium- to long-term we will endeavour to establish a customer experience academy to build capabilities across the Company and provide certification. We will also seek to gamify the journeys and experiences we offer to ensure that they are immersive with both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).