ALKHOBAR, 19 October 2004 — Connectivity in the Kingdom has been less than ideal for many years. Frustration with poor communication services has grown as connectivity has become more essential to everyday functionality. With only one telecom company, consumers in Saudi Arabia had just one place to direct their angst when they had difficulty “phoning home.” Saudi Telecom (STC) became the company we all loved to berate.
Back in the days of really poor connectivity before 1998, the Ministry of PTT handled the responsibility for telecom services. Plans and policies made during the decades that telecom was a government service caused extreme discontent among both consumers and businesses. On its founding, STC inherited the entire telecom mess. As a monopoly provider STC had very little impetus to change and growing a customer focused corporate culture took years. But the threat posed by competition (STC would say, “The Challenge”) finally did what years of customer complaints could not.
Saudi Telecom is now engaged in a “Civilized Progress.” The company’s vision is “to provide timely integrated telecom solutions that provide optimum value to stakeholders.” Their mission is, “To enrich people’s personal lives and contribute to their business success by offering high quality services that reflect their true needs.” Has STC accomplished its mission? Not yet by any stretch of the imagination. But the truth is that STC is trying to reach the stated goals and that in itself is worth recognizing.
I’d never actually seen one of the top managers of STC. Oh, they were out there somewhere in Riyadh ’s desert sands, but finding one to actually sit down in an interview was always impossible. At this year’s GITEX IT trade show in Dubai , STC had a very prominent stand staffed with active, intelligent, personable representatives. I took a chance, asked for an interview and was informed that I’d be called as soon as an STC executive became available. I didn’t have much hope that such a promise would ever be fulfilled, so just imagine my shock when that most impossible of telephone calls came through.
Saud M. Al-Daweesh is the vice president for Saudi Telecom and the president of Al-Jawal, STC’s mobile unit. He’s very informed about Al-Jawal’s operations, especially the areas of customer complaint. Al-Daweesh is very interested in listening to suggestions for improvement of Al-Jawal’s services and he has his own perspectives to share on many of the issues that have landed STC in hot water over the years. He pointed out that STC has had to take the blame not only for the company’s own mistakes, but also for poor long-term planning, government regulations and even certain social norms.
While he’s willing to step up to the line and accept responsibility for STC’s own errors, he feels that the time has come for people to judge the company on its new attitude toward customer service. He asked that consumers consider the gains made by STC especially in the last year and that they compare current telecom service levels with the telecom service that they received in the Kingdom in the past. Al-Daweesh welcomes the entry of the Etisalat Consortium to the Saudi market, believing that real competition will actually help Al-Jawal and STC.
“With any competition in the beginning you have the incumbent which dominates the market,” said Al-Daweesh. “Now we have a new entry and the regulator will help that operator survive for a while until a certain level of customers is reached. Only then they will really open up the market to competition. Then the market mechanism will decide the price, the quality of service and so on. At the moment we don’t have an open competition. We have a regulated market. It is not unregulated yet. Are the prices going to go down? Yes. We will drop our prices very soon. We will drop the monthly charge. We will drop the rate per minute. It will not be big but it will be significant.”
“Now, can we drop it as much as we want?” he continued. “No. The regulator will step in and stop us. Do we in STC want the competition to be open? Yes. We want it open from the first day. That would help us. But we have to be realistic. We know that the new entry will take time to build their network. Therefore we have to go by the regulatory laws.”
While STC is limited in competing on prices, the company can take steps to improve customer service to hold on to as many subscribers as possible.
“We are working to improve our customer care, our customer services,” said Al-Daweesh. “We will be concentrating on the customer. We will be adding new services to the market and you will see them rolling out by December and January. In fact, some new services are being rolled out as we speak.”
At this point, Jameel A. Al-Molhem, Al-Jawal’s general manager for marketing, joined the conversation.
“We have identified areas of customer concern and opportunities for new services,” Al-Molhem explained. “It is the responsibility of the operator to educate people. We have an educational campaign that is going to start after Ramadan to advise the public about the new services and the benefits of these services. We are putting out brochures and bill inserts and have upgraded our Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to give customers automated information at any time they require it. We are also using new channels of interaction. For example, when we launched Al-Jawal Net, Internet over GPRS, we dedicated a full website to the service to help customers understand the service from A-Z, even if they were not technically savvy.”
Al-Molhem said Al-Jawal’s latest service, Mawjood, which is the missed call notification, has been very successful. So far more than a quarter of a million people subscribed to the service.
“I don’t think we would have reached that number without our users having knowledge of the service. This means our consumer education is working,” claimed Al-Molhem. “I think our service is getting better. I know we are getting closer to the customer. During the summer we had a campaign where we gave mobile connections for free. We went to 24 cities on a roadshow. We have a new CD that contains Al-Jawal information on services, including how to activate them on the handsets. We are putting out more and more kits in the market, such as start-up kits that you will receive when you subscribe to our services. We are doing our best to be very, very easy and give the customer what he needs.”
If STC is working so hard to improve service, then why is the public’s perception of the company still so negative? Al-Daweesh was quick to respond to this query.
“I think first of all when you are one player in the market, usually people don’t have another company to benchmark you against or they benchmark you against their imagination. They imagine an operator somewhere in this world, an operator who doesn’t make mistakes. I believe the perception will change once we have the competitor there. Then people will benchmark the two operators. We are operating in a certain environment and I don’t think it is fair if people benchmark us with an operator operating in a different environment and different market. We are listening to the market. We do surveys every quarter and see the perception of the people. It has been improving.”
Al-Daweesh wanted everyone to know about the improvements Al-Jawal is making to its call center operations. He believes that if consumers can get better information they will be happier with Al-Jawal services.
“We have hired a professional company to train people at the call center,” said Al-Daweesh. “We have improved our call center management and have installed new systems at the call center. All of this will make it easier for the customer. An educated customer who doesn’t want to go physically to an agent, can do a lot of operations through the call center. We are hoping to reach 90 percent of our services done through the IVR, without talking to a person. If a customer does have a need to talk to a person, then he or she will find a specialized, trained professional for different services. For example, for Al-Jawal Net we have trained staff to handle only that service. They know all about it and will do their best to help the customer. At the same time, we are launching a loyalty program. This program will be one way to give value back to the customer and show our appreciation for his utilization of our services.”
The loyalty program is to be a joint program between Al-Jawal and Al-Hatif, STC’s land line unit, probably launched before year-end. Subscribers will be able to gain points on every phone call plus their monthly subscription, value added services and SMS. At its most basic, customers will get one point for every SR10 they spend with Al-Jawal and Al-Hatif. Earned points will be able to be redeemed for Al-Jawal and Al-Hatif services. In later phases, STC hopes to add other merchants and discounts to the program.
With Al-Jawal expecting to introduce so many new services that rely on the latest handsets for functionality, there is a concern that current regulations banning handsets with cameras could hold back the growth of those services. Al-Daweesh is against the camera phone ban and he declared that legislation is the key to the handset dilemma.
“We at Al-Jawal believe that handsets with cameras should not be forbidden. Many new services will depend on handsets with the latest features,” Al-Daweesh advised. “Some services are even focused on using the camera in the handset. The truth is that most handsets will be manufactured with a camera anywhere you go. We are working with the regulatory agencies in order that they will come to allow handsets with cameras to be legally sold in the Kingdom. It is not the camera that is making the problem. It is the bad usage of these handsets that is wrong. We should pass laws that prevent bad usage and allow the phones to be used for good things.”
(Comments to baisa@maktoob.com.)
