By Macharia Kamau
In an effort to increase revenue from its data and corporate business, Zain Kenya yesterday opened a customer service centre at Nairobi’s upmarket Westgate shopping mall in Westlands.
Mobile phone service providers are positioning themselves for a bruising battle to net high value clients for the data and corporate segments of the business, as earnings from voice traffic begin to drop.
The landing of the Teams and Seacom fibre-optic undersea cables this month, will increase the amount of bandwidth available to launch value added data services.
Zain’s new centre will also stock mobile phone handsets and Internet modems, and includes a customer care section for non-corporate clients.
won award
Speaking at the launch, Managing Director Rene Meza said the company was modernising its 250 shops across the country, and increasing their range of services.
On the intended sale of Zain Africa, Meza said official communication would be handled by the parent company in Kuwait. Zain Group is planning to sell its operations in 16 African countries, with Vivendi emerging as the strongest suitor so far. The Zain Group won two awards at the 2009 Global Telecoms Business (GTB) awards ceremony held in London recently.
Its banking and money transfer service, Zap M-commerce, won the Innovation in Mobile Banking Award, while Group Chief Executive Saad Al Barrak won the Editors’ Lifetime Achievement Award for contribution to telecommunications.
Zain Kenya has customer service centres in Mombasa, Nyeri, Nakuru, Eldoret and Kisumu, and over 250 partner shops.
