Interoperability: The Needed Catalyst for a Fair Playing Ground in the Telecoms Sector, Affirms Telkom Kenya

Consumer-Centric Approach

Betsy Sanders defines Service as something… ‘In short, is not what you do, but who you are. It is a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do if you are to bring it to your customer interactions.” This description is the denominator when it comes to consumer centricity.

Customer-centric is a way of doing business with your customer in a way that provides a positive customer experience before and after the sale in order to drive repeat business, customer loyalty and profits and a customer-centric company is more than a company that offers good service.

A recent Customers 2020 Report predicts that by 2020, customer experience will overtake both price and product as the key brand differentiator. Many say that it already has. Forrester Research has also been consistently driving the message that we are now living in the Age of the Customer, where the customer determines his or her experience with the brand, not the other way around.

READ: More Goodies for Telkom Kenya Customers as 4G-Network is Expanded in Nairobi

So, while more and more brands begin to talk the customer-centric, customer-service-focused talk, the difficult part is standing up the culture to walk the walk.

Telkom Kenya, however, seems to be walking the talk as they embark on a series of changes that are aimed at creating the perfect ecosystem for the consumer to have a perfect customer experience with the brand as competition in the sector tightens and the consumer becomes choosier and convenience-oriented.

Telkom is owned by Helios, whose shareholding is at 60 percent and the other 40 percent is owned by the people of Kenya through the government. The brand has been going through a systematic rebrand focusing on the consumer.

BIG 4

The brand has broken down four key pillars that are the foundation of the rebrand and consumer centrism and these are:

1. The Mobile division
2. The Mobile Money aspect or T-Kash
3. The Wholesale Carrier division and
4. The Enterprise division.

The 4^th agenda is of keen interest to me because it’s where I am affected as a consumer and analyst because it’s a B2B module with consumer centrism to it. It’s what the SME world has been waiting for in the telecom industry.

As the brand positions itself to ensure that it has a better return for its shareholders, its priority is the consumer because without the consumer, then the shareholder has nothing to look forward to and this means that the brand must focus and win over as many customers in the Enterprise division as possible. The reason why the shareholding aspect is key is that the brand is 40 percent owned by the public of Kenya and that means, success is the only way forward.

Talking to the MD of the Enterprise Division, Mr. Kris Senanu, he affirmed that the brand is committed to the consumer and that they are doing everything, in terms of products, services, and policy to push for an eco-system of environment that is appealing, enchanting and pocket-friendly to the consumer.

As the brand focuses on its journey to reclaim its birthright as the leading telecom in the region, its duty to the country is not lost in the sense that, its strategy is also plugged in to the BIG 4 agenda by the government in a move that is ai