Corporate News
Safaricom customer care staff serve clients: The company has scrapped the credit limit on its post-paid tariffs. PHOTO | FILE
By MUGAMBI MUTEGI, pmutegi@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- All customers on the Sh1,000 and Sh2,500 Karibu post-paid tariffs will now have to make prepayments if they use up their minutes, text messages or Internet bundles before the month ends.
Safaricom
has scrapped the provision of credit on its post-paid tariffs ahead of
plans to revise the airtime bundles under the popular calling service
later this month.
The telecommunications firm on March 31 completed the phased
elimination of a facility that allowed customers to spend up to Sh2,500
upon exhausting their monthly allocations before the replenishment
date.
All customers on the Sh1,000 and Sh2,500 Karibu
Post-pay tariffs will now have to make prepayments if they use up their
minutes, text messages or Internet bundles before the month ends.
“We started resetting the credit limits for
post-paid customers to zero sometime last year and the process came to
an end beginning of this month,” a Safaricom customer care
representative told the Business Daily, with several others confirming the decision.
Customers on the tariff pay either Sh1,000 or
Sh2,500 per month for a mix of talk time and text messages (for use
within and outside Safaricom’s network) as well as data bundles.
These resources are replenished on the first day of every month.
Subscribers who exhaust any of the resources
beforehand were, until now, entitled to a credit of either Sh1,000 or
Sh2,500 extra credit for use before the month ends.
A customer who, for instance, spent Sh350 to buy extra bundles and text messages, would, therefore, receive a bill of Sh1,350 — an undefined billing system Safaricom has now scrapped.
“Going forward any post-paid customer who exhausts
his resources ahead of the due date will have to make a prepayment to
access the service. At no point will customers get bills above their
allocations,” said the Safaricom representative.
Safaricom is this month expected to unveil a
revised Karibu tariff proposition for its customers, having said the
current rates have been financially unsustainable since their
introduction in 2011.
Rather than cancel the tariff, Safaricom in January
announced it will either increase the cost of each bundle or decrease
its size at the current rates to maintain its customers while ensuring
profitability.
This will allow the firm to retain those already subscribed to the tariff and begin taking on new subscribers.
“Termination of the product is not an option;
customers will have to be offered the tariff under new terms, which are
still being finalised,” a Safaricom official told the Business Daily in an earlier interview.
“The new tariff will be made public in April and
will take effect the following month. Those who choose to continue will
be migrated.”
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