Connecting Ethiopia To The Future

By Eden Habtamu, Ezega News

Addis Ababa, July 29, 2009 -- These days, one of the last words many Ethiopian would like to hear is “Sorry, the subscriber that you have dialed is not in service area, please redial later”. And, of course, there is a second one from Ethiopian Telecom that is equally not pleasing: “Your account balance is low, please recharge soon”. By now, even the lady who recorded this message must be tired of hearing her own voice over and over again.

One of my instructors at Addis Ababa University (who taught us public relations) gave us examples of public relation officers who were working for different governmental and non-governmental organizations. He said, “let’s take the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation as an example: why on earth would Tele have public relations program? It is known that Tele has no competitors; and whether we like it or not, we have no choice but to be a client. In such a monopolized market, the role of public relations becomes insignificant.” In other words, why spend extra money when all customers are yours – guaranteed?

Ethiopian telecommunication has multi-dimensional problems: from selling its services, to maintaining and repairing the endless problems faced by its clients every day.
In addition to its voice delivery services, ETC recently introduced data communication technologies such as Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). However, as always, it is lagging behind in providing good service to its customers. Most technologies arrive in the country very late. A recent example is GPRS, which is the data communication standard for previous generation of GSM networks.

When ETC launches a new service, the training that should be given to its staff (especially to the customer support personnel and sales agents) usually comes after its clients are used to the service, or never at all.

This was what I personally encountered when I tried to subscribe CDMA Internet access via the cellular network. Since I already have CDMA modem, what I needed from ETC was a SIM card and an instruction on how to use the service. So, I went to the nearby branch of ETC and waited for nearly two hours to talk to a guy who, I was told, was in charge of providing the CDMA card. After waiting that long inside an extremely suffocating environment (the branch office), it was my turn to take the card. However, the sales clerk simply told me that I was on the wrong line. Mind you, I stood there for nearly two hours because the coordinator guard told me to wait in that line.

Unbelievably, I had to wait on the other line again to get the "miracle card". This time, I was so thankful that I did not wait that long. After about 25 minutes, I reached the final and “right” place. The subscribing process was not that long. Within 3-4 minutes, I bought the SIM card and left the building with a high sprit that I will never come back to see the building again. I did not have any idea that I would be a regular customer to the office for weeks to come to understand their services.

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