Telecel shines again Obert Mandimika
Obert Mandimika

Obert Mandimika

Tonderai Rutsito
Recently, my two friends and I went for lunch at a local hotel where we treated ourselves to a buffet for $30.
We were spoilt for choice in terms of food and drinks and after sampling the array of meat, vegetable and starches that were on offer, we realised that we could not take in any more.
It made me realise that when you are provided with unlimited quantities of something chances are that you will not consume as much as you think you will consume.
In this case we consumed food that was less than the $30 that we paid. This is the catch that most service providers use.

I believe that this was what Telecel wanted to achieve when they introduced their super voice bundles, which gave away 200 minutes for just $1 or 90 minutes for 50 cents a day, valid for 24 hours.

Although they later on reduced the offer to $1 for 70 minutes, in my opinion  it was still a bit too much.
I believe that Telecel were so sure that though there were some idle subscribers out there, prepared to talk for hours,  it was not practical for more than 40 percent of their subscribers to completely  utilise all of the minutes daily in less than 24 hours.

Telecel were offering outrageous minutes from just a dollar but were very smart to only give this airtime a lifetime of only 24 hours, which made it impossible for  millions to finish all of the minutes in a day especially for those who spend the better part of their time at work.

Most subscribers were complaining that they only use not more than 10 minutes of the  super voice bundles literally losing the remainder of 60 minutes as they would then automatically expire, to make matters worse, the happy moments were removed from the off peak hours.

Telecel duly responded and introduced a much better option last week coined  Telecel Go with two  plans, the Telecel Go Juic’r and Telecel Go Flexi.
Refreshingly Telecel Go Juic’r calls are at a flat rate of 15 cents per minute across all networks no matter at what time of day the call is made while the Telecel Go Flexi the per minute charges are 19 cents during peak call time, 11 cents per minute during off peak hours and 9 cents during the night call period.

All calls are still being charged under the per second billing system while Data and SMS charges are the same for both plans. These are 11 cents and 9 cents, respectively.

To move onto the Telecel Go platform,  subscribers simply have to dial *737# and choose the package they would like to go for. Subscribers have the option to switch between plans.

They are however only allowed to switch plans once a month for free. Thereafter they will be charged 20 cents every time they change the plan.
Personally what excited me is the Telecel cross Net Voice bundles, these are likely to be much more popular as they add real value with convenience offering a minimum of 10 minutes per every dollar and 57 minutes for $5 across all networks making them real convenient.

Even after introducing the Go Juic`r, Telecel have not banned the popular mega promotion. Communications and branding director Obert Mandimika said that they did not want to inconvenience those who are unwilling to adapt to the new billing system.

“Instead of forcing every subscriber to opt between the prepaid platforms, subscriber may still remain on the current platform and enjoy the mega bonus promotion platform where they still get double of their airtime as usual,” he said.

The writer is the editor of TechnoMag, Zimbabwe`s premier technology magazine, more on www.technomag.co.zw  or join us on our facebook page  www.facebook.com/technomagzw  Email articles[at]technomag.co.zw  tweet @TechnoMagZw

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