Safaricom now conducts online survey to gauge customer perception about its services

Safaricom is conducting an online survey to find out what customers think of its services.

The online survey is being offered via SurveyMonkey. It contains seven questions, four of which are multiple choice questions while the rest are open-ended questions requiring respondents to provide more comprehensive feedback.

Some of the questions on the survey try to relate Safaricom to its competitors. Some of the questions are: “Do you like Safaricom Limited, neither like nor dislike it, or dislike it?”; “Compared to our competitors, are our service’s prices higher, lower, or about the same?”; “Compared to our competitors, is our service quality better, worse, or about the same?” and “How convenient is Safaricom’s range of services to use?”. An interesting question is about the telcos dominant position. It asks: “What do you think of Safaricom’s monopoly on the market?”

The survey comes in the wake of Safaricom apologizing for hackers taking over their #SafFunFriday online competition and thus causing their customers to miss out on the intended prices.

Safaricom issued the apology through an official statement; it was issued in reply to a blog post doing rounds on the internet, claiming that the online competition, #SafFunFriday, was rigged.

The statement was released by Safaricom’s corporate affairs director Nzioka Waita.

“We wish to address online customers complaints in relation to our recently ‘SafFunFriday’ social media promotion,” Waita’s stated.

According to Communication Authority of Kenya’s (CA) industry stats for first quarter of 2014/2015 (which covers July to September 2014), Safaricom had a market share of 66.7 per cent, a decline of 0.3 per cent compared to last quarter which stood at 68.0 per cent. Airtel Kenya’s market share increased to 16.5 per cent from 15.7 per cent recorded during the previous quarter while Essar Telecom’s share declined by 0.4 per cent to reach 7.6 per cent from 8.0 per cent share registered during the previous period. Telkom Kenya (Orange) share increased to 9.2 per cent from the previous 8.3 per cent, recording a 0.9 per cent gain.

In terms of voice traffic by operator, Safaricom’s traffic increased to 6.0 billion minutes from 5.8 billion minutes recorded during the last quarter even though its market share dropped by 3.1 percentage points to register 75.6 per cent share from 78.7 per cent share posted during the last quarter. In comparison with the same period of the previous year, its share declined by 1.1 percentage points.

Airtel Kenya’s traffic expanded to reach 1.0 billion minutes, an equivalent of 13.4 per cent share from 722 million minutes or 9.8 per cent share. When compared to the same period of the previous year, its share increased by 0.3 percentage points.

Essar Telecom’s traffic volume declined during the quarter to reach 529 million minutes from 553 million minutes posted in the last quarter. Its share too declined by 0.9 percentage points to register 6.6 per cent share from 7.5 per cent share recorded during the previous quarter.