With few days to go and 180 calling most of MTN subscribers, is no longer new neither is a long thread of SMS from SIM REG a pleasant notification to MTN users. Who before now have invested so much of their time on registering and re-registering and in some case re-re-registering(permit me) their lines, yet they are constantly taunted by these calls and SMS from MTN who are not willing to lose their customers yet are not willing to be customer centric. In view of this the following points where observed with the MTN SIM Registration Process;
Untrained Staff-Some of the staff are not well informed to know that the thumb-print scanner needs to be constantly cleaned because of continuous usage.
2.Sub-Standard Thumb Scanner- Most of the scanners are of low quality, thus result in poor capturing of customers finger prints which leads to spending several minutes attending to one customer. The quality of the scanners is so poor that capturing is more of trial and error.
Poor Software-The application the operators are using for the registration can automatically shut down and all the customer’s details are erased without any notice or backup. Hence a full system restart will be required which will take at least 2 minutes.
Long Processing Time- An average of 8 minutes is spent registering a customer due to the challenges faced when trying to capture the finger prints. These minutes do not include the long waiting hours, customers are meant to wait for an exercise they have continually done before.
5.Insufficient Registration Centre- Due to limited registration centers around major cities, customers are forced to spend longer hours on queue under unfriendly weather conditions and sometimes end up not been able to register either due to frustration or lack of electricity to power the systems in the case of power outage.
Recommendation
Engage IT inclined personnel(Which is in abundance) that are smart and can come up with innovative ideas that can support processes and knows what to do when faced with challenges. Due to the time frame and in other not to lose your customers it will be best if you acquire high quality scanners that can capture both thumbs once, thereby you can cut the processing time by 75% and the waiting time by 50%.And if possible a regular update of the system software should be done to avoid restarting the systems frequently. From observation all that is required for this process is a scanner, laptop with the software installed on it, which is linked to a central database and a webcam, which simply means that a close collaboration with your distributors and retailers will reduce the tension around this registration process. As you can setup systems for them and they can capture data of customers at different locations with less pressure. All that is required is to designate a central location where all this data can be validated real time before approval. And the validation process should not take more than 30 Seconds. Furthermore since MTN claims that the data captured previously was inconsistent and needs to be recaptured, in other to save time a form might really not be needed, as data of customers who had previously registered existed, all that will be required is for MTN to populate the database with this data and a simple query of a customer’s phone number should be able to retrieve the customers details and areas that needed correction can be easily highlighted and this in turn will make the process faster for all parties. Proper investment in equipment and training of staff will go a long way in saving cost for the company as this will pay off on the long run as the process will be a continuous one. Also effective collaboration with your distributors and retailers will make the process less cumbersome and stressful for the company and the customers.Data aggregation and analysis will be helpful in advising customers when you call from your Customer Care Desk which locations they can visit that is not ove
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