Kenya ICT regulator, the Communications Authority (CA) has since reported that mobile penetration in the country has crossed the 100 percent mark. Many locals have dual SIM devices and own two or more SIM cards because different carriers have services and products that others don’t, such as cheaper voice and data packages sold by Telkom and Airtel Kenya, and Safaricom’s upper hand in a robust and broader LTE coverage, not to mention its stand in the mobile money space with M-PESA.
Kenya is currently gobbling up digital services, and the telco industry has been instrumental in pushing the online agenda. Mobile carriers and their associated businesses make significant contributions to the nation’s gross domestic product too. Put differently, telecoms have the largest number of daily users, hence providing the best customer experience is mandatory, although its quality is often not the best.
It is evident that the telco space is dominated by Safaricom, and efforts to declare the carrier a dominant player have not been successful. We have covered the concerns raised by the likes of Telkom and Airtel, which argue that Safaricom’s massive market share is a hindrance to fair competition, and does not encourage innovation. As a result, customers tend to choose to be loyal to a brand because of its positive presence other than continuing to use telco services at least as much as before.
That aside, customer experience in the industry jumped from 27 in Q2 to 31 Q3. These numbers were reviewed by Ajua, a customer experience platform. Furthermore, data from the organization reveals that Safaricom has the best customer experience, replacing Telkom Kenya that topped the charts in the preceding quarter. Safaricom’s growth has been linked to a series of great offers for data services and voice calls.
It also appears that Safaricom has been a good job educating consumers about their data usage patterns because people were complaining about fast depletion of their internet-accessing nuggets. It has also introduced data and voice bundles that do not expire.
The second spot is taken by Telkom and Airtel with an NPS of 28. Both carriers have attractive data and voice plans, but coverage is limited to urban centres, and are marked constant complaints from customers on social media platforms.
Airtel and Telkom are planning to combine their operations before the year ends, but the process has not been without issue. Safaricom is still pushing for equal access to the spectrum because the merger would effectively give Airtel-Telkom a larger share of the limited resource. Telkom also owes Safaricom money and wants to be cleared before the merger materializes.
