One of the different ways that businesses woo customers to patronize their products or services is sales promotions. Succinctly put; a sales promotion is an activity designed to boost the sales of a product or service. It may include an advertising campaign, increased public relation activity, a free-sample campaign, offering free gifts or trading stamps, arranging demonstrations or exhibitions, setting up competitions with attractive prizes, among others.
This is not different in telecommunications business where operators render services to subscribers on their network, they often times embark on one form of promo or the other, all in the name of increasing the number of subscribers as well as reward loyal subscribers for retaining the network. Telecommunications business is a business of numbers where the large number of subscribers on the network, the more profitable the business. Against this backdrop, that Global System for Mobile communications GSM) operators in their usual style have rolled out mouth watering end of year promos in order to reward as well as woo more subscribers to their networks.
The four GSM operators in the country have each designed promos in such a way that subscribers are rewarded through bonus airtime, cash gift, household property and free intra network calls.
MTN Y’ello Bounty Promo
MTN in its "Y’ello Bounty Promo" is wooing subscribers this festive season with different prizes. The promo which commenced on 1st December 2009 through January 08, 2010 consists of two simultaneous activations: National draws where prizes shall be won on a weekly basis and daily regional draws where instant prizes will be won on the streets.
In essence, the promo will reward MTN customers for either buying a new SIM and/or loading a minimum of N200 airtime within a week. The following rewards will be on offer during the promo:
Customers who buy new SIM cards will be credited back with the recommended retail price of the SIM (N150) if they load a minimum of N200 airtime within 7 days of activation. The N150 will be credited as N50 airtime bonuses over a 3 month period. They also automatically qualify for the weekly or regional draws where they stand a chance to win exciting prizes. More so, if a subscriber loads a minimum of N400 airtime denomination, he gets 10 per cent instant airtime bonus, which can be used for on-net calls. The customer will continue to receive 10 per cent airtime bonus on each N400 recharge card denomination loaded during the promo duration. They also automatically qualify for the weekly or regional draws where they stand a chance to win exciting prizes.
 Glo Biig Dash Promo
Mobile arm of telecommunications giant, Globacom, GloMobile in line with its desire to reward its subscribers this season launched “Glo Biig Dash Promo.” The promo which has been suspended to enable the network effective take care of its impact on the network as well as re-package it for effective service delivery, allows their subscribers to make free on-net calls for a daily rental of N40.00 only. Basically, Glo subscribers can call other Glo lines as long as they want for just N40 daily. GloMobile claims to be revolutionalising the telecoms sector with this promo.
In order to activate ones Glo line for the Biiig Dash promo, all that the Glo subscriber needs to do is just dial *100*1*1# from his phone. The rental of N40 will be deducted from the subscriber’s airtime daily and he can call all his or her contacts on Glo network for as long as he want without attracting any further charges.
Zain Naira rain promo
The third GSM operator, Zain is not left out as the network has also embarked on its own promo to ensure that it retains its subscribers as well as attract new customers to the network. In the Zain Naira rain promo, a Zain subscriber can become a millionaire this Christmas season with just N50, which is the promise Zain is making to its loyal subscribers this Christmas through its Zain Naira Rain promo. Subscribers qualify for daily draws by using credit worth at least N50 in any given day. N1m will be won each day till the end of the Christmas promo. One lucky Zain subscriber will win N10 million at the end of the promo. The Zain Naira Rain promo ends on 7th January.
The Zain Naira Rain gives one a chance of being rewarded for using his Zain line this Christmas. Whether it is an SMS, voice call, or other data service once they use up to N50. For each N50 a subscriber used in a day he gets an entry. For example if he uses N150 on a particular day, he will have 3 entries in the draw.
Zain in addition to Naira rain is simultaneously running its Loyalty/ Rewardz Scheme.
The scheme, the company said would give its customers an opportunity to earn points, collect prizes and enjoy discount when they would have accumulated enough points, adding that various prizes can be won depending on the number of points earned by the customer.
Shamel Hanafi, chief Commercial Officer, Zain Nigeria, said the programme is open to both pre-paid and post customers. He said the scheme is both a loyalty plan and reward programme and that it is specially packaged by the company to offer its customers special privileges and rewards for their loyalty to the brand.
However, fourth largest telecommunications company, Visafone is also seeking enlarged market share in the CDMA arena with ‘The Zero Advantage’ package.
The company said the N0.00 Handset Advantage was designed to give back to new subscribers the full value of the cost of purchasing any of the two handsets: Haier C5000 FM phone, and Huawei C2802 in 3 months.
Etisalat
Etisalat having concluded ‘Najillion’ promo has began its brand of end of the year promo to ensure that its subscribers are taken away by other operators it tag ‘9ja talk 4 free’ this allows Etisalat subscribers get 1 minute free for every minute call on the Etisalat Network this Christmas season. The ‘9ja talk 4 free’ promo is Etisalat’s offer to you this Christmas. Simply pickup your Etisalat phone, make a call to any Etisalat number and you will be given 1 extra minute free for every minute you spend. This is a Christmas gift from Etisalat. The free minutes can only be used to call Etisalat numbers. This Christmas offer from Etisalat ends on December 31, 2009.
In all of these the bottom line is that all the networks running promos will witness large volume of calls on their network as well as new subscribers. Then the question that arises is how prepared are these operators to absorb the increase in traffic to ensure that quality of service is not affected. Ordinarily, before such promos are unveiled network operators are expected to carry out network audit, which analyses the impact of the expected influx of new subscribers as well increase traffic on the network capacity. Experience has shown that although these audits are carried out but severally it has not been effective resulting in networks experiencing congestions. This is the case in almost all the networks running end of year promo presently, subscribers are now faced with difficulties in either making calls or recharging their phones orchestrated by congestion on the network.
Previous experience
The situation subscribers are currently faced is close to what happened in December 2007 when operators started similar promos which eventually resulted to congestion on the networks. The height of the problem was on the eve of Christmas and New Year when most short message service subscribers sent to their loved ones were not delivered but charged. This prompted Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to carry out audit on all the GSM networks and found MTN and Zain most culpable and thereafter directed that they compensate their active subscribers with N175 worth of airtime.
NCC also placed ban on promos by GSM operators, which was subsequently lifted on the grounds that they restrict their promos to the use SMS avoiding promos that will give subscribers opportunity to make free calls or airtime reward which often times result in congestion.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations reveal that since then, this season is the only period that operators have come out the same time with promo campaign that includes free calls, airtime bonus, cash reward as well as material gift. It was also gathered that quality of service on almost all the networks has been affected. This prompted Glo Mobile to suspend its promo to enable the telecommunications giant repackage the promo in away that it will not congest its network. Industry watchers that spoke to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek hail the move by GloMobile and urged other operators to think in that direction. They advised operators that are running promos which are expected to woo subscribers to the network that such promo may be counter productive if such when it affects capability of the network to process calls and thereby make it difficult for existing subscribers to complete calls. This they said could result in existing subscribers leaving the network for other network; they urged NCC not to relent in its promise to introduce Number portability by next year which they believe will make operators more conscious of quality of service when rolling out promos.