Loy Okezie

When Globacom announced last week Tuesday that their subscribers can make free on-net Glo-to-Glo calls for a daily charge of N40.00 only, in a promo tagged Glo BIIIG DASH, it seemed like the smartest marketing campaign ever in the Nigerian highly-competitive telecoms market to attract more subscribers.

But actually it was a lame effort.

Industry analysts have suggested that the promo was in response to Etisalat’s promo that allows their own subscribers get back every minute they spend on calls without a daily rental fee.

Whatever the case, the party just crashed as Glo has experienced huge problems with their network for the past week. Yesterday, Glo sent an SMS saying:

Due to overwhelming response of millions of subs to the BIIG DASH, many of who engaged our network longer than anticipated, we are witdrawing this offer for now. Expect a wow package soon.

My thoughts

I’ve always argued against promotional efforts by telecom companies that seem desperate and overlooks the primary reason why they are in business – to satisfy their customers. In this case, Glo might think they’ve satisfied their customers, but they’ve just shown a lack of market and technical research foresight.

I think that if they really want to gain more market share, they had better concentrate on improving network service quality, excellent customer service initiatives, and improved product developments instead of running desperate and lame promotional and marketing efforts.

Just hope that ‘wow package’ wouldn’t be another silly promotional effort.