By Prince Osuagwu

With the telecom sector regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC set to roll out the mobile number portability, MNP, the feeling in the industry is that the major operators who may be having network congestions due to too many customers may lose part of their revenue as some subscribers may likely opt out to smaller networks and still retain their original number.

So, when Hi-Tech ran into Mr Akin Braithwaite, Customer Relations Executive of MTN, one of the major operators in the country, we seized the opportunity to sound him out. However, Braithwaite did not only stoutly claim that MNP would favour MTN more, he revealed that his company and the Nigerian police were fine tuning ideas to make third party data request more accessible than ever, in answer to the growing insecurity in the country. Excerpts:

Mobile Number Portability is expected to go live this quarter. Given the fact that MTN has a very large market share, how prepared are you to cope with this?

Braithwaite

Mobile number portability is something that we are excited about. As you have rightly mentioned, being the biggest network, there is a big attraction for customers to come join us from the other networks. The footprints for one; customer service for another; the branded experience; value for money; and being a very major brand that spreads across Africa and the Middle East. Customers had been constrained to come over in the past – because they don’t want to lose their number and things like that. So we are extremely excited and anticipating the commencement of mobile number portability.

Let’s look at the issue of security numbers which MTN pioneered, how would this not be in the way?

Absolutely not, already we have fared brilliantly with the initiative and it has brought a great relief to customers who are the beneficiaries. You see, out of nowhere, we began to notice a lot of identity theft – people wanting to commit nefarious acts with other people’s lines. This was becoming quite an irritant and causing problems both for our customers and to us. So we took the view that we needed to do something very radical. We tracked and chased some of these hoodlums but it was clear that we needed something that was fundamental. That gave birth to the security number. Now what the security number has enabled us to do is to kind of put a lock and key behind people’s lines.  It has garrisoned our customers’ data and their confidential business with us. So we have seen a drastic reduction in fraudulent activities and this has made customers extremely happy. It will also help the subscribers more, whether they are porting in or out.

Accessibility to the network is a big issue in customer relationship. If you are so confident of the network and the investments on it so far, why are customers still complaining of difficulty in getting through to you?

This is something that gives us sleepless nights and we are constantly going at it and will keep going at it. The real challenge is that we are quite a successful network and that means that we are constantly having new customers joining our network. Interestingly and happily, customers are not leaving our network. Because our customers are relatively satisfied and they also appreciate that we are continuously trying to improve; they are attracting other customers and so we continue to grow. And as we are growing we are trying to build customer support frameworks both in terms of the online and the physical outlets. But the rate of growth of customers on our network has so far surpassed the extent to which we can build our assistance framework. A lot of that is set to change with the advent of social media which we are now embracing.

Billing irregularities still recur from time to time among your customers, especially when people roam their phones. What are the real issues here?

From basic disruptions of service on the network to fibre cuts, there may be a lot of reasons that can cause your call data records to go missing. Anything that disrupts the network flow can cause billing record irregularities. Perhaps and most importantly, the prices charged in the regions roamed into may be expensive and in foreign currencies. The subscriber may not be aware of it, but it does not stop the charges from being deducted. Once you enter a foreign network, you start to burn data and money.

So we are trying to really reach out and educate our customers on how to manoeuvre through those issues. The other thing that we have done is to look at how we as a network can help our customers to enjoy better call rates. So we have brought about a new functionality which is a sort of call back functionality where you dial a code and then you can access a service at a far cheaper rate and we have been trying to publicize it.

Releasing customers call records is still an issue today. While some say the processes are cumbersome, others feel its an infringement on their privacy. How do people obtain  call records from MTN?

We have got very good processes around the release of customer records. Right from the introduction of security number all the way through to the involvement of the police. As I speak with you, we and the Inspector General of Police have agreed on a particular process which whenever there is an issue requiring the release of third party call records, it will go through a particular central police body who are the ones to make the requests. That’s on one level. But if you want your ordinary bill – you want to pay your bill and you want to know what your records are, we are not putting any major obstacles in your way. There is again a process that drives that and it’s available for our individual customers as a right.

What has MTN done lately to improve customer experience on the network?
We have done quite a number of things in this regard. First; we have taken the view that customer experience isn’t something that is negotiable and we like our customers to have the best branded customer experience. Recently we have been able to start swapping out our old network assets, together with modernization of other components in various regions of the country.