OUR CUSTOMERS

Our broad customer base encompasses the full spectrum of individuals and organisations across Kenya. Our customers are split into consumer customers, individual purchasers of goods and services, and enterprise clientele, which include businesses of all sizes, ranging from small office/ home office (SOHO) businesses and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) to large corporate firms.

CONSUMER CUSTOMERS

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT
Our customer-centric approach, wherein we focus on user experience rather than network performance, is facilitated by customer experience management (CEM) software Crowdsourcing, a tool from Vodafone that collects user experience data such as signal level. The tool, which allows for granular assessment of user experience, uses information from customers who have had a poor experience to enable us to improve it.

REBUILDING CUSTOMER TRUST
In the year under review we faced pricing wars with our competitors. The harsh economic conditions of the fi rst half of the year, characterised by depressed credit growth and strained consumer budgets, made spending money on new products less of a priority.

We faced trust issues around mobile data usage and billing. Our customers felt their data resources were dwindling out of proportion to their usage, when in fact new technology demands higher rates of data usage as apps incorporate complex content such as video. We acknowledge our customers’ sentiments and experience, and have been able to design innovative, viable solutions to address these issues.

Following negative feedback from customers, we simplified our opt-out procedures to put them in control. For easy opt-out of premium rate subscriptions, we created the USSD string *456*20#, which has been used by two million customers to date. In addition, a unified opt-out for all marketing or promotional messages was enabled using the string *456*9*5#, giving customers control over the types of messages they receive.

Innovative Solutions and the Value Added to Customer Experience

My Data Usage

A feature of MySafaricom app that enables customers to track their data usage by various applications in their device.

Value Add: Expanded the scope of the tool to include our youth package, BLAZE, and Safaricom Platinum, making our data pricing more transparent.

Data Save is an additional feature of My Data Manager that allows customers to choose to watch video content in lower resolution, without compromising quality which makes data resources last longer.

Data bundle amnesty:
Customers are able to recover expired data bundle by buying a new bundle. The new bundle has a longer validity than the duration left on the bundle about to expire.

MONITORING OUR PERFORMANCE
Customer satisfaction is determined by the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures the likelihood of a customer’s recommending (promoting) our services to friends, family or colleagues.

The revamping of our data offering has led to swift recovery in both NPS and mobile data growth. In the last four months of FY19, this growth was consistent, and we finished the financial year with an NPS of 61, five points behind our closest competitor. M-PESA remains the key driver of NPS. Safaricom mobile money services are extremely popular, especially thanks to their ease of use.

Our overall NPS score for enterprise customers peaked at 29 per cent between July and October 2018, but dropped afterwards to 24 per cent towards the end of the year. This is due to decline in network reliability, whilst our performance in terms of product and services reliability and price competitiveness (value for money) remained stable.

BLAZING INTO THE FUTURE
In FY19, we sought to drive uptake of BLAZE, our network catering to young people aged 10 to 26 years old, which has 3.2 million subscribers.

Case Study: Profile of a BLAZER

Name: Kelvin Musyoka
Business category: Fashion
Aspiration: Designer
Niche: Recycling leather to make jackets and designing unique bags for the local market.
BLAZE activity: Be Your Own Boss (BYOB) Creation Camps and TV show

I started off selling “mitumba” (second-hand) clothes, and I took a loan from my brother to kick-start my business selling leather bags and jackets.

My BLAZE training helped me set up a retail shop in the CBD. I was able to market and position my business to corporate clients and landed a large order, which helped me scale my business and set up a manufacturing workshop with two permanent employees. We broke even in our second month and have expanded our customer base.

I was invited on to 10/10, a popular TV show, to speak about BLAZE BYOB, my business and entrepreneurship. I offered to dress the show’s host for two months and he agreed to wear my jackets on the show every Friday in November and December. The publicity was a huge boost for my business.

ENTERPRISE CUSTOMERS

ENGAGEMENT WITH OUR CUSTOMERS

In the last quarter of FY19, our Customer Operations Department was redesigned and some roles were redeployed. The resulting efficiencies cut across retail channels and the call centre, allowing employees to work together in allocating and aligning resources where they are most needed.

Customers, especially the youth demographic, are increasingly taking up our self-service options, choosing to use digital channels rather than phone customer care.

Case study: The Social Media Team

The social media team was established in 2011 as a small team of 25 and since has grown to 130 agents, at least 60 of whom are available daily. The team comprises a youthful mix of individuals who reach an average of 5,000 customers daily via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The social media team’s priority is to give excellent service in the shortest time possible and we have maintained this over the years. Our response time and resolution management performance have become industry benchmarks, earning us several awards.

During the most recent Customer Service Week, which runs the first full week in October each year, our focus was to encourage our customers to engage with Zuri and use the MySafaricom app for self-service. The response was very positive; our customers are happy to have more self-service solutions.

This year we also launched our Facebook Live channel, where we interact with customers to promote products and services. The broadcasts help with customer education and encourage instant feedback.