January 3, 2008
By Shahid Ali Butt
ISLAMABAD,
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) continues to launch innovative pricing packages and products coupled with superior customer care for its subscribers in a highly competitive market.
The country's oldest telephonic services provider, PTCL has recently introduced a new voice package aptly named the Pakistan Package, which allows its subscribers to call nationwide (NWD) at a rate of PKR 0.04 (4 paisas) per minute. It's time to pick up the phone and start calling your near and dear ones, no matter whether they are in Peshawar or Karachi, in Panjgur or Kasur.
It is evident that the company has always been endeavoring for offering the best deal to its customers. From 1996 to 2003, the maximum NWD rates were revised downward from Rs. 42 to Rs. 10 or by 76 per cent. After that in each successive year the rates were revised downward by 40%, 23%, 50% and 13%.
In December 2007, the rates were cut down by a whopping 98% through the introduction of the Pakistan Package as the Package allows 5,000 NWD minutes for the fixed charge of only PKR 199 per month. Simple math tells us that 5,000 minutes translate into more than 83 hours and about 3 and a half days. In other words you can spend more than a tenth of your month talking nationwide if you remain subscribed to the package.
The minutes in this promotion are not time specific meaning that they can be utilized at any time of the day unlike the promotions for reduced charges at certain times of the day that many other companies offer. The company has already spent over PKR 50 million on ads for communication and support services for customer education.
It was pre-activated on all numbers because a huge favorable response was expected as the pre-launch customer surveys indicated an acceptance rate of over 85%. Yet, for those who do not want to remain subscribed to it, the company has offered four channels for deactivation. These include automated interactive voice recording (IVR) response on the helpline 1236, response through a customer services representative (CSR) on the helpline 1236, PTCL revenue offices and PTCL customer care centers.
Apart from the helpline, other methods have been provided because as is the case with helplines they can only cater to a certain capacity.
The company has increased call centre capacity to deal with the rapid influx of calls, many of which are for more information on the package.
Even if a subscriber deactivates the package on the last date of the month, he will not be charged for it. If the month passes and the subscriber gets the bill with the charges for the package include, he can still take the bill to the nearest revenue office in the next month and get the bill corrected.
The Call Detail Records (CDRs) for any user whose usage exceeds 5,000 minutes will be printed so that extremely heavy users can check their usage.
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