MTN, Is this your best effort?

By Arthur M. Katabalwa.

MTN has painted the countryside yellow but for how long?

Over the last few weeks and months a growing chorus of protest has been growing in the public against the services of the largest mobile services provider in Uganda, MTN. So many complaints on a personal level have been leveled against this mobile giant but in my view there seems a complacent indifference of their service to the people.

Last Friday, I arrived back in the country from a holiday to England. As soon as I arrived at the airport, I replaced the SIM card in my phone from my UK number to my Ugandan MTN number. It took me all the way to Lubowa, on Entebbe road, traffic jam, fueling and all put together for my phone to finally lock on to the MTN signal. First sign that this was going to be an experience from hell.

After a while, I excitedly decided to load some data and this was when the situation became almost comical. After several attempts at *150*1#, *160*1# and God knows what codes, I was still having no joy at all. On several occasions I got the " Wrong MMR Code" or "Operation failed...Please try again later"....then to my astonishment, the data was loaded....about all the times I had tried to load it, only now they had now depleted my phone credit, giving me so much data allowance than I needed in 24 hours or so I thought. By mid evening, the service was down. So I could not use the data anyway.

On Saturday, armed with vengeful furry I sourced there customer services numbers. First of all, two of them don't work. A lovely lady on 125 tells you which numbers to call for talk time inquiries as 121 and  123 for pay go inquiries. So I decided to ring 123. It doesn't work. First of all it takes one into phone call cul-de-sacs. After so many "dial this number" the system finally hangs upon you. Speaking to a human voice the other end of the line is nigh impossible...but I have talked to two.

On a Saturday and Sunday evening, the last thing a call center worker is an irate customer on the other end of the line. I have done call center work. All one needs is a nice customer  with some benign complaint. But these poor souls had no clue despite their best efforts. Try and ask for a manager and there is a draw of breath from these hapless souls. There is none!

MTN is still the dominant mobile internet and mobile phone service providers but at this rate they will not be able to organize a drunkards party in a brewery. The service is so bad that is beyond a joke. And when you hear the recorded mantra "Welcome to a new world" you feel like saying back "yes, out of here."  They have painted most of the country yellow with their skillful advertising but the services are no longer fit for purpose.

I am not aware what the powers that be are doing about this abject service but are they aware that is actually harming the economy? This is the problem when economies have dominant giants whom we cannot afford to fall. Probably a few irate customers like me are cannon fodder in the economic battles. The tax bill that MTN pays the government cancels out the dissatisfaction and failed business deals that one may have made. We can't effect the demise of this giant but little steps can do it. Many have joined the multitudes and voted with their wallets and left MTN. There are some of us who have invested a lot in our phone numbers that to leave would be very problematic. So we fall to the best position that all companies want of their customers; inertia.

I have since spoken to some MTN management after this debacle and they apologized for the inconvenience that was caused. I was also refunded some money.....UGX1000 to be exact which I took as an insult by the way. But my advice to them is that these systematic failures are causing irreparable harm to their business. MTN is slowly becoming synonymous with system failures and dropped calls, a company that is not in touch with their customers. How far this is true is open to debate but from where I am sitting, the system as it stands now is not sustainable. If I was asked to defend this service last Sunday afternoon, it would have been a hard sell. The managers had absconded their duties to a handful of besieged call center workers who breathlessly offered to pass on my complaints to the appropriate authorities. MTN managers, yours is a 27/7 operation. Please have someone on hand to react to any queries that may come up. The system as it stands at the moment is really, really bad. Sort it out. The whole thing; top to bottom (which may include yourselves).