Last week’s light jab at its fighting rivals wasn’t enough for Telecel. They’re not done yet taking optimum advantage of the situation. In a more settled and deeper response to the goings on with Econet and NetOne, Telecel statements in the print press attributed to the CEO Francis Mawindi, essentially offer that the company would never do what Econet did.
“Our position is that we provide an invaluable communication service to our customers and at all times we must put our customers’ interests first,” says part of the statement attributed to Mawindi. The statement goes on to, more directly, say:
In line with this long-held customer centered approach, Telecel will not be disconnecting subscribers due to disputes relating to interconnection agreements with other network providers. Telecel’s strongly held position is that customers must not be inconvenienced due to disputes at an institutional or corporate level.
The statement goes on to explain how Telecel absorbed costs from service provision whose value could not be recovered from post-paid subscribers during Zimbabwe’s hyperinflationary era. As you may recall, and as NetOne has emphatically reminded us over the past couple of days, Econet, during the inflation madness, basically made a decision to convert all post-paid accounts to prepaid ones to cushion their business against the free falling Zimbabwean dollar.
In the same statement Telecel also says telecoms partners should however honour their financial statements to avoid inconveniencing customers. Again, no prizes for guessing who this message is for.
It would have been great of course if Telecel had said if and how much they are owed by NetOne, so these statements are in clearer context!
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14 comments
im disapointed with telecel’s customer care. i switched from econet hoping i would get better service, but no ways. i have been failing to connect to the internet since last night. i tried calling Telcel’s customer care numbers, im sure you know the rest. i am deeply disapointed with Telecel. please can they at least open a reliable communication channel for their clients hey.
I have been trying to connect to the net with Telecel all morning without success. It wouldn’t surprise if they scheduled a maintenance/upgrade for the weekend and never announced it. That’s Zim customer service for you. But I do find Telecel customer service much better than our beloved but pathetic Econet.
Dude, didn’t u receive the SMS?
Nope! Email is better as I may my line stuck in a modem on a linux machine or in a 3G wireless access point. SMS messages won’t get though
*125# balance check seems to have also stopped working as well since yday 🙁
seriously how can a big company like Telecel have an upgrade / maintenance / fault and not communicate to 2 million clients. this is pretty bad.
Your frustration is the result of a mass-market product like 3G/GPRS/EDGE dongle! Customer care or support for such products is generally very low or next to zero, much like when your mobile phone loses network – try phoning Customer Care! The solution lies in the service provider having adequate supporting infrastructure to provide the bandwidth and uptime, but this is long in coming in Zimbabwe in respect of all service providers at the moment. If you need reliable Internet at all times, the mass-market product simply won’t cut it! You will have to go the route of ADSL, Fixed Wimax/WiFi (where provided), fibre optic, mobile wimax if you are close to a wimax base station. This is obviously a lot more expensive, but service providers are not honest enough to tell the public the truth about mass-market products. Their adverts are so misleading the customers who rush for these products will be expecting near 100% reliability and performance. Yes, they definitely have their place but NOT for mission-critical use. Just my 2 cents.
You are right, your comment is worth 2 cents and only applies to dynamics in zim. Regionally and globally 3g internet is normally more expensive than adsl. In zim all 3g/cdma telcos are still growing their networks after a decade of infrastructure decline. Where 3g/cdma networks are fully developed they combine the best balance between cost, reliability, speed and uptime. A good example is China with an internet population of more than 300 million that access the net through mobile devices. Go figure.
Actually, even in Zim, 3G (and its variants) are way more expensive than ADSL
And it will stay that way where ever you go lest all you guys start short changing providers by using skype 🙂 Until data usage reaches critical mass, providers cannot risk losing their voice revenue by lowering data tariffs..simple maths. Hence Data is not their core business and you won’t get good support because while they are using it to pull the crowds, they are very much aware of the potential damage it may cause to their income
I guess 6 is NOT equal to half-a-dozen!
At times u just need to read the press…. Telecel gave a warning that all 3g services will be down thru the weekend due to maintenance (I don’t remember the exact words).
The numbers don’t lie. If Telecel were so good as they claim, how did they miss the numbers. I always ask my self this question, “if Econet is so bad as professed by many on this forum and beyond, why then has it grown far bigger than the competition”. My instinctive answer would be ……They are better than others in a pack of mediocrity. But, alas, they are “the domestic best”. In my area, Econet is practically the best network with a more stable 3g service than others. The network has significantly improved in the last six months for both voice and data. As for customer service, third party assistance has been the only way out
guys lets appreciate the little we have, its juss a matter of time