Turshir Maheshwari is the chief commercial officer of Starcomms Plc, a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operator, he has helped in making the company a preferred brand with his several years of experience having worked with telecommunications companies in India and Uganda. He spoke on issues around building the brand and other industry issues.

Coping with low ARPU in the industry
Although this is a challenging time in the business of telecommunications in the country, but we have being succeeding where others are failing because we see the consumer as the centre of our business. In whatever thing we do, we look at it from the consumer perspective before doing it.
For instance, if you look at mobile phone, ordinarily it is a device that makes life convenient, for us we are looking at how we can make life much more convenient with the device. This goes beyond voice that is my philosophy. That is the reason why we have launched new value added services such as the one that allows the subscribers to listen to Bible or Quran on their phone, you can access your facebook account on the phone. These are services which we have launched. As long as you provide the customer with what he or she wants and you do it well, I think the rest is easy. However, during recession one need to manage cost which is one aspect, but one thing which we actually focus on is superior service delivery and innovation. We try to make things very easy for the consumer, for instance before now if our subscribers want to recharge their data service they have to go our shops and do it, but now, we came out with innovation that allows subscribers to recharge their modems online or through short message service (SMS) . If a subscriber wants to know his or her balance on the modem, all he or she needs to do is to pick a Starcomms phone send an SMS to a number and his or her balance will be sent to him or her phone. These are small things we have been doing that dear us to the customer. Customer queries and feedbacks are taken very seriously in the company, whatever thing the customer said we try to respond to it quickly.
Maintaining this standard
We have key performance indicators for every department in Starcomms, outside that everybody in Starcomms is customer centric. There are various ways through which we get feedback from the customers, we do carry out research where customers are asked how they feel about us and how they feel about other operators we use it to bench mark our service and give the customer a new experience. In addition, we get feedback from our call centres, we also get feedback from our page on facebook all these are monitored and actions are taken along this line. It is all about getting the right feedback from the customer, and acting quickly on it.
Having pioneered the self care portal as a means for our customers to interface with our network without recourse to Starcomms shops nationwide, we are mindful of the need for continuous interaction with them so that we can determine how to bring innovation to bear on their needs. With the survey, we seek to discover areas that Starcomms customers would like us to improve and identify new innovations for the Nigerian market. As a responsive network, the total satisfaction of our customers is a priority with us. So, this survey helps us get there.
About Starcomms survey which is a further step towards excellence in customer relations which has become the hallmark of the company. For months now, Starcomms customers have been having the rare opportunity of relating directly with the company’s CEO to lodge complaints or to make one enquiry or the other about Starcomms products and services through an email address: [email protected]. 
The company took this step in recognition of challenges that telecommunication customers face in an attempt to resolve issues on the services they are receiving.
Another thing about standard is that we don’t only look at standard within telecommunications industry; we believe that as we are in the service industry, our focus is to be the most admired brand in the service industry, which means that we benchmark ourselves on everything we do against banks, airlines and hotels. This is one of the reasons why we launched Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service, which are in Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo and Pigin. Customers can do a lot of self service through this service.
Recent Awards
Our most recent award is the Superbrand award which is an internationally recognized award for most preferred brands especially in Nigeria. It is something great. This award got to us by a pleasant surprise. One day we received a letter from Superbrand Nigeria that we have been awarded this award. None of us in the company knew that we are going to win it. They look at various parameters which included conducting survey among consumers on the brands they identify with. It is the consumers that selected Starcomms as their most preferred brand.
What does awards means to you?
Awards beckons on us that we need to work harder for us to remain on top as well as raises the bar of performance. It also means that we need to improve on the standard which has been set for you through the award that is more commitment in order not to loose it to competition. The customers have put their trust on us; we can not afford to fail them. This means that we cannot relax thinking that we have arrived; we need to be moving in all directions in terms of service, network, customer care and in terms of value for money. These are something which we have been doing which I believe earned us these awards.
Focus on data occasioned by your subscribing to MainOne cable
Quality is an ongoing process and the whole world is changing what you would perhaps not think of doing on the internet some five to six years back, today you are doing it. In the data service space, what the customer wants is reliability and speed. About the coming of MainOne, before now, the internet pipe was actually choked; there were not much bandwidth available. It was becoming an issue for someone like us, but with the cable, we will be able to improve our services much better especially broadband.
Delivering Broadband services outside Lagos
Our broadband service is available in several other areas where we have rolled out voice service, they include Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Warri, Ibadan, Benin, Kaduna, Kano, Ilorin, Jos among few others. These are the cities where we are providing broadband services and we are not going to stop there because we know that providing broadband service in rural areas or up country town will enhance business activities. In developed countries were broadband services are available in rural areas, farmers are able to get better price for their produce, simply because they are able to get what the price of such commodity is in the city sitting down in the village. This is made possible by the availability of broadband internet service. We acknowledge all these and plan to extend our coverage beyond the cities I mentioned earlier even in the villages.
Customers expectation from the Company in near future
 Our customers should look forward to a very high level of service, excellent service in all respect, be it data or voice as we focus on quality across our services. When I say quality all across I mean all aspect, be it network, customer care or even the terminal switch which we are selling.
Subscribers are eager to experience better quality of products and services, if you provide them quality they will grab it up. For instance, we recently launched a phone which is a high sense phone that cost N9, 999. It comes with a quality key pad, it is data enabled with clour screen, and the phone is just selling without any advertisement. What customers should expect is better quality of service, better terminal equipment and above all innovation in all these areas.
Consolidation in the industry
It is difficult to predict now what will happen in the industry in terms buying over other operators, all I can say is that consolidation will be there. I think consolidation is something that is bound to happen in this sector.
Outsourcing in the sector
Outsourcing is good for the industry. The point is if you outsource, somebody else is managing the service for you. I think that we and other service providers need to focus on the service which we provide to the customer. We should be managing the brand, distribution network and finance which are the heart of the business. Outsourcing is a good thing to do, we are evaluating it. However, some other companies have outsourced virtual everything, they have outsourced IT, network, and call centre. What the operators are managing is their brand, finance and distribution network. It allows the operator to focus on the key strength which it has got for efficient service delivery.