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As Nigeria celebrates its golden jubilee, Bharti Airtel, which recently took over Zain Africa operations in 15 countries, has expressed its commitment to continue to empower Nigerians and to support the growth and sustenance of businesses through the provision of world-class mobile network, innovative products and services and affordable tariffs. Bharti Airtel brings into Nigeria a solid international clout and a broad range of experience in providing integrated telecom, including mobile voice and data services, fixed line, high speed broadband, IPTV, DTH, turnkey telecom solutions for enterprises and national and international long distance services to carriers. In the coming months and years, this expertise in delivering communications solutions to customers, which has led to the ranking of the company as the sixth best performing technology company in the world, is expected to help transform the constantly changing Nigerian telecom landscape and its soaring customer expectation and demand. Airtel is poised to bring exciting and quality mobile services to phone users in Nigeria in the same way it does across India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It intends to pursue a quality of service improvement regime and a transmission network expansion programme to give Nigerians a better cellular experience. Fortunately, the big operator, which now has 183 million customers as at June 2010 across its operations, can draw from the rich history and achievements of Zain, including its record of beating other operators to the tape by becoming the first commercial GSM service in August, 2001, and scoring a series of many ‘firsts’. Zain is the first to introduce toll-free 24-hour customer care, toll-free line – 111; first to launch service in all the six geo-political zones in the country; first to introduce the N500 recharge card; first to introduce monthly free SMS; and first to introduce monthly airtime bonus. Airtel’s partnership with communities Building a strong and long lasting partnership with the communities is in the heart of Bharti Airtel’s business philosophy. The company perceives and positions itself as an integral part of society, which must be socially responsible at all times and in all its dealings, maintaining high ethical standards and compliance with the rules and regulations in its methods and practices of doing business. Its concept of social responsibility is not limited to a concern with welfare schemes, charity work, or the occasional support for health, education, security/emergency, sports and the arts. It is the desire of the company to partner with the government in providing education for less privileged children and as part of its social investment plan in Nigeria, it intends to partner with the Ministry of Education to build and maintain schools, where rural children across the country will be provided free education, free <strong>book</strong>s and free lunch and the teachers are paid salaries. Commitment to strong customer service and job creation Airtel is devoted to raising the company’s amazing customer service status in Nigeria. Despite the company’s dominance in good customer service delivery in the industry, Airtel has signalled its intention to up the ante, through call centre seating capacity expansion, personnel development, and investment in equipment/solutions. Since 2003 when awards started in the telecoms sector, the company has consistently walked home with the Best Customer Care Operator of the Year awards to the vexation of other operators. In 2003, it was crowned as the Most Customer Sensitive Network by Handwriting on the Wall of Thisday Newspapers following the result of a poll conducted on telecommunications consumers countrywide. During the same year, it received the Best Customer-friendly Network at the maiden edition of the Telecom Awards. The following years, it picked up the Best Customer Care Operator (2005 and 2006) by Telecoms Awards, GSM Company of the Year 2005, by City People, and the Best Customer Care Mobile Company (2006) by IT & Telecoms Digest. The unbroken endorsement for the company’s long good customer care service tradition continued when it again rose above its peers in the Telecommunications Industry to win the Best Customer Care Award for 2009 in a ceremony organised by Nigerian Information Technology and Telecom Awards (NITTA). This came a year after the industry umpire, the NCC placed its approval seal on Zain’s rich customer care tradition by awarding it the Telecom Network with the Best Customer Care Service prize, during a live television show at the fifth anniversary edition of the popular Telecoms Consumers Parliament in the nation’s capital city, Abuja. Enhancing business and promoting individual effectiveness through innovative products and services Airtel has a rich blend of products and services, including a loaded bouquet of Value Added Services designed to support the growth and sustenance of businesses, and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of individuals. Barely a month ago, Airtel in Nigeria provided a foretaste of what customers will enjoy by introducing a posy of new value offerings as part of its commitment to design tailor-made solutions that will suit both the lifestyles and aspirations of telecoms consumers across the country. The idea was to ensure that an affordable telecoms solution is provided for different classes of Nigerians, with particular attention to age group, income level and lifestyle preferences. In line with the concept of the package, the new offerings included a package for youths called KoolMax; a product for middle class individuals, ValuMax, which is also an extension of the recently launched pre-paid tariff plan; and an expansion of StepUP, a premium lifestyle package targeting High Value Individuals, into two categories: StepUP Platinum and StepUP Diamond. The four new value offerings: KoolMax, ValuMax, StepUP Platinum and StepUP Diamond, have afforded telecoms users across the country with an opportunity to choose specific mobile solutions that reflect their lifestyles and enable them to communicate with friends, family members, business partners and associates at pocket-friendly rates. Airtel has equally made available in the market many other highly beneficial services such as Blackberry services for both post-paid and pre-paid customers. Call Me Back feature which enables pre-paid package users to communicate even when they run out of credit, voice SMS, Call collect service and Me2U, the airtime transfer service that makes it possible for customers to transfer credit to other Zain pre-paid package users. Other service offerings including Mini Call, Toll Free service, Credit Me and Friends and family, conference call and Pay4Me (a service that helps the calling party to make calls at the expense of the called party) have been well designed to empower the individual phone user. Airtel Football Community service, a unique Value Added service that provides customers the opportunity of receiving SMS updates on the English Premier League for the four biggest clubs Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. The ground-breaking One Network service makes available to hundreds of millions of people in communities across Africa and the Middle East, a borderless mobile phone network. The service is the first in the world and has made cross border business and other activities easy and convenient. For further information visit www.ng.airtel.com
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