Airtel Ghana began with the launch of the national consumer promotion dubbed ‘Dὲὲdὲw’, meaning ‘sweet’ in the  Akan language.

On offer is a brand new Honda CRV SUV as the ultimate prize for the three-month promotion which began on December 1, 2012, until February 28, 2013.

There are also two other Honda City saloon cars to be won, one in each month, tickets to watch Arsenal at the Emirates in the United Kingdom and Samsung mobile devices among other things.

Winners would be selected through nine weekly wins, with the winner being a customer with highest accumulated points from all legs of usage for that week. There will also be two monthly wins, with winner being the customer with the highest accumulated points for the four weeks in the first month.

The second month will include points accumulated from the previous month and 100 customers will be rewarded.

The grand draw will see the total points gathered from months one, two and three being used to select the overall winners and again, 100 customers will be rewarded.

A few weeks after the Airtel promo launch, GLO Ghana, the country’s fifth biggest telecom company, also joined the fray and introduced a new package christened “Glo BiiiiiG 5” on its network in a bid to attract more customers to its network.

The bonus package has a validity period of between seven and 25 days after which it expires.

This was quickly followed by MTN Ghana, which launched the second edition of its promotion dubbed “Dream Big ‘Xtreme’ Promotion.”

The promotion which is one of the biggest and most rewarding in the country presently will run for the next 100 days and MTN customers will have the chance of winning prizes daily and monthly basis.

The final jackpot of GH¢150,000 will also be won by texting WIN to MTN short code 2020 and responding to some questions to accumulate points.

There will be three monthly draws during the 100-day promotion of which the player with the highest number of points accumulated during the month will drive home a luxury Jaguar –XF 3.0 car worth GH¢100,000.

The ultimate winner at the end of the promotion will receive a sum of one hundred and fifty thousand cedis (GH¢ 150,000).

On a daily basis, the player with the highest number of points and one randomly selected player will receive cash prizes worth GH¢5,000 each.

Two Android devices worth GH¢ 500 each will also be won by two other lucky winners every day.

Other daily consolation prizes include MTN airtime and other products.

Fines for poor service quality

While these promotions are being held, customers continue to suffer poor quality service, a situation which compelled the NCA to raise the whip.

In the last quarter of 2011 for instance, MTN was fined GH¢300,000 for poor quality service by the regulator in the Upper East and  West, Greater Accra and Brong Ahafo regions.

Airtel, at the time, suffered the heaviest fine of GH¢350,000 because it also defaulted in its service quality in three regions; Western, Greater Accra and Brong Ahafo.

Vodafone which also defaulted in its service quality in three regions; Western, Greater Accra and Brong Ahafo, was fined Gh¢150,000.

tiGO was fined GH¢100,000 for defaulting in Western and the three northern regions.

Again in March last year, three top telecos were again slapped with penalty fines totaling GH¢250,000, by the NCA for what it described as “various Quality of Service (QoS) infractions after a quality of service tests.

The companies were MTN, the industry market leader, Vodafone and tiGO.

According  to information posted on the regulator’s website, “MTN was penalised GH¢50, 000.00 for call setup delays in the Central Region and a further one hundred thousand Ghana cedis (GH¢100,000.00) for call congestion in the Brong Ahafo and Central regions”.

Vodafone was on the other hand asked to pay GH¢50, 000.00 for Call Setup delays in the Western Region.

Third placed-tiGO was slapped with the same amount for signaling congestion in the Brong-Ahafo region.

Sanctions to Airtel on call congestion in the Brong-Ahafo region were suspended pending the completion of their expansion plan in Sunyani.

Meanwhile, the company has up to end of June this year to complete that project.

In a related development, sanctions according to the NCA, to Expresso on call setup delays were also suspended until July the same year for infractions in the Eastern Region when coverage is expected to improve in Koforidua.

The company was also directed to improve coverage in Tarkwa by September 2012.

Telcos market share

MTN maintains its dominance in the market closing the third quarter of the year with the highest market share of 45 per cent with 11,269,926 subscribers. Vodafone, the second largest telecom company in the country also has, as at end of third quarter 2012, a subscriber base of 5,027,207 which represent 20 per cent of total market share.

tiGO occupies the third spot with 3,757,977 subscribers, representing 15 per cent of the market.

Fourth placed Airtel closed the third quarter with 3,040,580, representing 12 per cent of the total market share.

Glo finished the third quarter with 1,610,434 to maintain its market share with seven per cent.

Expresso at the end of the last quarter had 178,071. This represents the per cent of the total market share the company has held for many years.

The Total Cellular/Mobile Voice Subscriber Base in Ghana as at September, 2012 stood at 24,884,195 as against the second quarter figure of 23,370,773.

Conclusion

In any fierce competition within any sector, promotions are held by the players either to maintain market share or simply to draw new customers to their fold.

In Ghana presently, the banking sector and dealers in electronic appliances such as Sony, Samsung, LG, Philips and Panasonic among others are the ones embroiled in all manner of promotions. Therefore, it is not wrong for the telecom sector to witness same.

However, subscribers are not the least satisfied with the services provided by telcos. The situation sometimes gets bad to an extent, the NCA has had course to intervene in some instances by slapping hefty fines on them for the poor quality.

It is therefore, not ambiguous to state that what can best reward customers is continues investment in infrastructure to improve the quality of service instead of investing huge sums of money to run a promo which ends up making a tiny percentage of their subscribers happy while the majority grieve for having bad service quality.

Story by Charles Benoni Okine