MTN Proves Voice Still King With TruTalk Relaunch

Despite all the noise about voice revenue nose-diving due to massive data push in the telecommunications sector, major operators still believe that voice will continue to be king for a long time
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This follows different innovations towards the voice segment and massive promotions and products churned out on daily basis to improve the voice market.

For instance, major Nigerian telecom operator, MTN Nigeria, last week relaunched its uninterrupted talk time promo, tagged TruTalk, saying it was to boost voice communications and give customers freedom of communication.

The new package is a prepaid tariff plan that gives customers the privilege of making calls at a tariff rate of 11 kobo per second to 11 selected numbers from any network of choice.

This invariably reduces the call rate to almost half the cost of normal call rate of 20kobo per second.

General Manager, Corporate Affairs, MTN Nigeria, Funmi Onajide, at the re-launch, said the re-launch is part of the company’s ways of trying to meet and possibly exceed subscribers’ expectations.

“For us at MTN, the launch of these extensions to the MTN TruTalk plan is an attempt to demonstrate our understanding of the desires of the vast majority of customers. This is the desire to talk and to talk cheaper. Whilst it is true that this industry is gradually moving to Telco 2.0, which is the focus on data and digital services, we also realise that there is a need to make it easier for people to talk. Although at the moment, data is the crown-prince, voice remains king,” Onajide added.

MTN said it pledges to continue to enrich the customer experience by offering a robust bouquet of innovative products and services, citing the launch of two additional features to The TruTalk service as a testament of that pledge.

Meanwhile, Onajide promised that the company would continue to explore new initiatives, innovative enough to avail subscribers more value for their money.

The TruTalk relaunch comes at the heels of a recently launched Betterme offer, which also gives subscribers more benefits including access to the internet at lower rates.

Access to internet

The MTN TruTalk service is also an upgrade of the Family and Friends feature, which avails customers more talk time and an opportunity to make calls for half the rate. Analysing the prepaid tariff plan with the game of football, which has 11 best players in a particular team, the Chief Marketing Officer, MTN Nigeria, Bayo Adekanmbi, said halving of the tariff was to enable people get things done, while adding that Nigerians now have the liberty to pick their best eleven across all networks to add more value to their lives.

“For us, customer satisfaction is key, which is why we are offering even more value for money by upgrading the Family and Friends feature so our customers can talk endlessly with the best 11 members of their team,” Adekanmbi said.

MTN TruTalk is a prepaid tariff plan that offers a flat rate of 20 kobo/sec across all networks from the first second a call is initiated.  The tariff plan does not attract a daily or monthly subscription or access fee.