Customer Services of Grameenphone Limited

The vital objective of this report is to analysis Customer Services of Grameenphone Limited. Other objectives of this report are to fulfill requirement of the internship program, to discuss about telecommunication business in Bangladesh, to provide an overview of the host organization and know about the management & Customer services system of Grameenphone, its objectives and its function and to discuss about the importance of Customer service Division. Finally this report make swot analysis Customer Services of Grameenphone Limited.

Objectives:

General Objectives:

To relate theoretical learning acquired through classroom study with that of the real life business situation faced by the internee during his/her Internship period.
To fulfill requirement of the internship program.
To discuss about telecommunication business in Bangladesh.

Specific Objectives:

To provide an overview of the host organization – know about the management & Customer services system of Grameenphone, its objectives and its function.
To discuss about the importance of Customer service Division.

Telecom Industry Overview

Introduction:

The definition of telecommunication is changing day by day. Before, telecommunications meant telephone systems. But today many other things have crept into modern telecommunication. Now, we have to deal with a wide spectrum of communications equipment and technology. In the broadest sense, telecommunication means any system that handles voice, data, video or any handling of information in motion, whenever it is found, in whatever form. Telecommunication is the main backbone of any country. No country can sustain development without a strong telecom infrastructure. One of the first priorities of any government is to be able to communicate smoothly around the country.

Despite the slow development of telecom services in the past, improved commitment, guaranteed funding and entering of new and powerful organizations both in and outside of the country gives the hope that the ongoing telecommunications projects will be successful and the overall telephone infrastructure of Bangladesh will grow stronger. The growth in the cellular industry is contributing very positively in the local economy. Lots of job opportunities have been created for the country where thousands of people are jobless. Moreover, cellular network all over the country has built a basic communication infrastructure for the country, which will definitely attract FDI in the country. Finally it can be said that mobile phone now a days has become a necessary rather than a luxury.

The mobile phone customers in Bangladesh have been happier than before at present because they have more choices regarding service providers at present. There are six telephone operators in Bangladesh now. Among them, one is Government owned telephone operator: Bangladesh Telephone Company Limited (BTCL) and the other four are privately owned companies namely Grameenphone Ltd. Aktel, Banglalink and City Cell and Warid Telecom.

Telecommunication Industry in Bangladesh:

The telecommunication sector in Bangladesh is poised for rapid growth in the coming years. The concept of mobile telephony has become largely familiar and phenomenal in Bangladesh from the early 90s. The sector, particularly which of mobile phones, is one of the fastest growing areas of the economy. The growth potentials will continue to remain robust for the near future.

There are five telephone operators in Bangladesh now. Among them, one is Government owned telephone operator: Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) and the other four are privately owned companies namely Grameenphone Ltd. Aktel, Banglalink and City Cell.

Introduction of mobile telecommunications system:

City Cell was the first mobile service provider of Bangladesh. Initially it had a monopoly on the mobile service but only until 1996. In 1996 two new operators entered the market- GP and Sheba. Sheba’s service was limited to Dhaka but GP spread its network rapidly. GP has two kinds of services- GP national and GP regular. GP national provides connection with BTTB and all other mobiles throughout the country wherever GP has its network. GP regular only connects to GP mobiles throughout the country according to its coverage. Grameen’s cell phones have reached a massive number of villages. GP, funded by the Grameen Bank (10%) and Nortel (90%), has used the optical fiber network owned by Bangladesh Railway. The fiber optic cables were originally laid by the Bangladesh Rural Transport Authority (BRTA) but never used. Therefore Grameen Phone’s network has been easily connected to any mobile users who are adjacent to Bangladesh railway tracks. The GP’s village program was started in 1997 and is providing service to people in the remote rural areas of BD. According to statistics of October 2003, there are more than 39,000 village phones in operation. These village phones are operating in 58 districts and in approximately 28,000 villages, providing telecom facilities to more than 50 million people in remote areas. Besides GP, CityCell and Sheba there was a fourth cell phone operator called Aktel. Aktel joined Bangladesh’s fast cell phone operation in 1999. Although mainly based in Dhaka, like Banglalink, Aktel has been able to attract customers and maintain control of quality.

Grameenphone Ltd.:

Grameenphone Ltd. is a joint venture of two different companies of two different countries. Grameenphone is the largest cellular phone operator in the industry in Bangladesh. The company holds the majority market share and largest subscriber base in the industry. The details of the company are discussed in the later parts.

About Grameenphone Limited

GrameenPhone Ltd is the leading mobile phones company in Bangladesh with more than50% of market share and after twelve years of operations the largest no. of customers to serve with. The company has a customer base of 21 million and the number is further growing. Last year more than 16.5 million people made GrameenPhone their preferred service provider and in this year the numbers of customers have reached to 10 million. Grameenphone’s customer base has grown by 100% per year, making it the fastest growing mobile telephone company in southern Asia. The company now serves almost all parts of the country, providing a large network all over Bangladesh. Grameenphone is the pioneer to bring in modern telecommunication technology and introducing state of the art product and services in the telecom industry in the country. GP is the first operator who introduces the pre-paid service in September 1999. It established the first 24-hour Call Center, introduced value-added services such as VMS, SMS, fax and data transmission services, international roaming service, WAP, SMS-based push-pull services, EDGE, personal ring back tone and many other products and services.

Telecommunication sector is a service-oriented sector. Grameenphone offers various types of new and innovative telephone services to both the urban and rural people of Bangladesh during the last ten years. Different types of post-paid services, the EASY and EASY Gold pre-paid service, and the village phone program are among its largest innovations. Besides these largest ones, Grameenphone also introduced a number of value added services like the news update service, international roaming facility, Voice Mail Service, Text Mail Service, fax and data transmission services, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) service etc.

The company is the pioneer in most of its services. Handsets or the phone-set and the SIM Cards, Scratch Cards are the only physical products provided by the company. By spreading nationwide cellular phone coverage and making it affordable to the low-income people of remote rural areas, Grameenphone has eventually connected these remote areas to the furthest corner of the globe.

There are so many departments in grameenphone like Finance Division, Customer Service Division, Human resource management (HRM), Technology Department, and Marketing Division. Grameenphone Customer Services Department is designed for the support of customers and is usually come into action after a product or service has been sold. It is a tribute to close relationships and the care it entails. It is a celebration of the magic of the closeness that Grameenphone facilitates through its superior service. Customer is their valued subscriber, are a member of the family they care for everyday. Grameenphone Customer managers are people just like customers near and dear ones. They are caring brothers, caring mothers, caring sisters, caring fathers in their own families.

Products and Services of GrameenPhone Ltd.:

The products of Grameenphone are categorized in four different segments four different kinds of users. They are:

General Users/ consumer
Business Users
Youth Segment
Rural Users

Government Benefits from Grameenphone Ltd.:

The services of Grameenphone have been serving the country over the last ten years since its inception on March 26, 1997. Along with the there other cellular operations in the country, Grameenphone has established the concept that the mobile phone is not just a status symbol in the hands of the well to do. It is rather a tool in the hands of the general people to achieve economic growth for the nation. Grameenphone as a service provider also enriches the National Treasury in many different ways. Since its inception up to December 2004, Grameenphone has contributed BDT 30,500 million to the Government Exchequer in direct and indirect taxes.

This monetary value does not include the economic growth that Grameenphone has achieved due to its enormous number of subscribers and the largest market share. The impact of this achievement on the country’s economy could be even larger.

Customer Service Division

Customer services

Well come to Customer Service Division

A significant measure if success for any company is how satisfied the customers are with the service. The Grameenphone customer service Department Under commercial Division is committed to go the extra mile to meet the needs of its valued customer.

The customer service Department took up many customer- focused actives in 2005.Focusing on customer relations and over all enhancement of after sales service quality. The Division was re- organized and re- aligned with other divisions to further enhance cross-functional cooperation, in order to be able to provide a positive experience through proper and on-time delivery of customer service. The CSD achieved greater efficiency, in terms if on-time service delivery, through its trained customer manager and the effectiveness of technology.

“CSD on the move” was introducing last year with the intention of reaching customers thought the country. Branded “Grameenphone Grahak kathe” the concept was developed to give custom’s platform to voice their opinions and expectations of Grameenphone. Customer feedback is taken in order to use the insights to further improve service quality.

The customer service division strives to give after-sales service to the customer rather than expect the customer to come to them for service. After all, positive customer experience is the key differentiator to being the industry leader.

Main Objective

Within the direction for the Chief Executive Officer of the company, the Director of Customer Services Division shall ensure that the customer services and related functions within the company at all times are aligned with and supports the realization of the company’s business objectives. The Director of Customer Services shall direct the company’s overall Customer Services activities; facilitate state of art customer experiences through Quality Services in order to meet company targets for growth and profitability.

Main Responsibilities

Develop, maintain and implement strategies, policies and procedures in order to establish organizational capabilities to meet current and emerging business needs for the functional area which includes:

Call Centers
Resource Management
Complaint Management
Online Customer Service

Support & Development

Making sure of over all customer services activities by facilitating state of art customer experiences through quality services in order to support the company’s present prime target that 2 out of 3 customers shall have Grameenphone as their preferred provider of mobile telecom and mobile data services.
Monitor and control the strategical/ tactical initiatives and activities within Customer Services functions.
Provide support and consulting to all local Customer Services functions within scope, in order to ensure coordination, business alignment and adaptation of best-practices.
Develop and maintain descriptions of departments reporting to this function defining their responsibilities and how work is organized between these departments.
Ensure awareness of, and ability to comply with, legal requirements applicable for the company and its governance documents, including SOA-required internal controls and Codes of Conduct.

Ensure necessary capabilities company wide to ensure that the organization is able to meet its current and future business objectives.

Customer Service Division has seven sectors.

Contact Centre

The contact centre is the first point of contact for council enquiries. A contact centre is a central point in an enterprise from which all customer contacts are managed. The contact centre typically includes one or more online call centre’s but may include other types of customer contact as well including email, newsletter, postal mail, website inquiries and chats, and the collection of information from customer. A contact center is generally part of an enterprises overall customer relationship management.

In a fast changing world, the role of the mobile phone is increasing day by day; so are the demands of our subscribers. We understand that customer demands are no longer confined to making or receiving voice calls only; rather with new value added services being introduced, subscribers are trying something new everyday. We are here to help. Trained customer service agents are within easy reach; ready with personalized support related to all our products and services.

Best customer service: One number for all 121

In a first changing world the role of the mobile phone is increasing day by day; so are the demands of our subscribers. We understand that customer demands are no longer confined to making or receiving voice calls only; rather with new value added services being introduced, subscribers are trying something new everyday. We are here to help. Trained customer service agents are within easy reach; ready with personalized support related to all our products and services.

In effort to become more user friendly, a single Grameenphone Hotline number 121 for all customers was introduced. The Hotline number has a language option for English, Bangla, a six other local dialects: Barisal, Sylhet, Rajshshi, Chittagong, Noakhali, and Khulna. Grameenphone subscriber can dial the 24-hour Hotline number 121 from their Grameenphone mobile phones 365 days a year. The call centre capacity has become considerably enhance, thus reducing the waiting period to enter the Hotline.

With you all the time: Our trained call center professionals are available round the clock, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

We are here to help: By simply dialing 121/ 121 15 (to talk directly with our Customer Service Agent) you can find the answers to any query in the cheapest way. Our customer managers are always at hand to listen to any kind of complaints regarding our products and services – we promise you proper feedback. We provide information related to the different products and services we offer, to help you make the purchase decision that is most suitable to your communication needs.

Grameenphone call centre in Nitol-Niloy tower. Call centre has five service operations in 6^th to 10^th floor. Every floor has a one team leader. Twenty four customer Manager working per roster under a Group leader. Customer Manager receives call from customer. Here is one thing Customer Manager try to receive subscriber call within Three second. Because Grameenphone always try to achieve customers satisfaction. Sometimes customer has been waiting for few minutes and they feel irritating. So Customer Service Division say that customer Manager must try to receive a call within three second.

Customers not only contact through voice call but also they contact with Online and email. Customer Service agent is making call GPs existing customer. They help the subscriber to solving their problems and also try to know their opinion. Grameenphones key account managers and Customer Service agent perform outbound call to customer.

Prioritized Hotline 121

Grameenphone believe in the importance of human touch in the business world. As we step into our third year of providing innovative communication solutions, Business Solutions aims to provide you with enhanced priority services as we value your time in business. Grameenphone make every effort to take care of your all telecommunications needs. Our dedicated Key Account Managers and Customer Service Managers are assigned to provide prioritized service to Business Solutions subscriber’s right from the beginning of the relationship. Enjoy prioritized customer service by simply dialing 121. Dedicated customers care managers are available round-the-clock, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week only to serve you better. Business Solutions postpaid subscribers can call 121 absolutely free of cost. To find out more about our solutions call (9am-8pm) 01711880011-14.

Experience of Hotline 121

An inbound call from a subscriber, she wanted to know about his FnF number and the rate of FnF. Then she disputes the rate of friends and family. She told me that Grameenphone Extra charged for that call. Then customer Manager checks her call list but here is no existing f n f number. Then the caller know that his fault.

Experience of Hotline 121

A customer calls in 121. He said that he had another Grameenphone Sim. Sometimes he used this sim. One day he was trying to use this sim but he can’t. He knows that this sim is invalid. Then he called the Hotline and wanted to know what the problem is.

Telesales

Scope of work

Develop strategies for the Telesales department to establish Customer Service as a major sales channel
Planning, facilitating and follow up the telesales in Inbound & Outbound Contact Center

Telemarketing or Telesales is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits to prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call. Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches programmed to be played over the phone via automatic dialing. Telemarketing has come under fire in recent years, being viewed as an annoyance by many.

Main Responsibility of the Telesales:

(a) Making live calls to potential customer and explaining them about the product that Grameenphone offer and to any query they might have, convincing them to work with company was actual reason and target,

(b) Achieving individual targets on daily, weekly and monthly basis,

Complaint Management

Scope of work

Professionalize complaint management in the whole company;
Handling complaints as a 2nd line to all GP customer contact points;
Handling written queries, requests and 1st line complaints;

Complaints arise when customer are dissatisfied with a service. An expression of dissatisfaction with the organizations procedures, changes, employees, agent or quality of service. To find the right type of solution, you need to understand the nature of the customer’s dissatisfaction. Some complaints are not appropriate for a particular resolution system, and some cannot be resolved. In these cases, you must still treat complaints with respect and fully explain the reasons why your organization cannot accept or resolve their complaint.

Various complain has been coming from subscriber in GP contact center. Some complaints are not handle or appropriate solution given by the call center, Grameenphone center, or other customer service point. This type of complaint has been going to the complaint management.

Complaint management mainly works with those problems which are not solved by the customer Manager from 121. Complaint Management handling critical and normal problem through queries, request on mails, faxes and letter from customers. Complaint Management also works for Employee complain in the whole company. Employee may have some demand, queries, and other requirements. Complaints Management handles professional complain and follow up and consult it with Companies Management.

There are 4 Groups work under complain management. These are follows:

Tech 1
Tech 2
Business and IR
Subscription and Fraud.

Complaint management Department use some tools for solve complains. All the information and useful tools are founded in the xxx. In xxx link of all information, user manual, latest updates, useful tools are found. To access those tools the officer needs permission and user ID and password. The complain are assigned to the groups by the nature of problem link fax for international roaming will assigned to Business and IR teams. The officer gets the mail from the server and he put it in the folder. Then they distribute the work and solve them. Like this way the tech 1 team get complain and they own complain from the complain list. Tech 2 handle ERS problem. Complain Management deal with complaints as quickly as possible. Employees frequently handle complaints immediately at point of delivery.

Complain Scenario

A customer informs the customer manager through 121. He received a call from a Gp number and promised incentives if he transfers TK. 500 to particular number. The victim subscriber sends this substantial balance in that number but he didn’t get any reward. Then he informs the Grameenphone Customer Service. In this situation Complaint management takes action to stop the fraud existing subscriber.

Resource Management

Resources Management function includes a variety of activities, and key among them is deciding what staffing needs you have and whether to use independent contractors or hire employees to fill these needs, recruiting and training the best employees, ensuring they are high performers, dealing with performance issues, and ensuring your personnel and management practices conform to various regulations. Activities also include managing your approach to employee benefits and compensation, employee records and personnel policies. “Resource management Department” as playing a major role in staffing, training and helping to manage people so that people and the organization are performing at maximum capability in a highly fulfilling manner.

Resource Management works under 4 categories. These are including:

(a)Forecasting & Scheduling

Scope of work

Data gathering
Data analysis
Forecasting
Scheduling
Developing and maintaining routing model

The basis of any good staffing plan is an accurate workload forecast. Without a precise forecast of the work to be expected, the most sophisticated effort to calculate staff numbers and create intricate schedule plans is wasted effort. The purpose of the forecast is to predict workload so that we can get the right number of staff in place to handle it. And there are many different situations in the call center environment that require a forecast to be done. The most common scenario for which we forecast is simply normal, day-to-day operations. But you may also require a forecast for special situations such as planning for new call type(s), opening a new center, a merger or acquisition, or a change in operating hours.

The final step in the forecasting process is an important one. There are many factors that influence the call centers workload and the smart workforce planner will have a process in place that considers all these factors in the forecasting process.

(b) Real Time Management

Scope of work

Data gathering
Data analysis
Forecasting
Scheduling

Developing and maintaining routing model

The supervisor’s workplace in Infra Call Center Supervisor is designed for monitoring and managing all call center activities in real time.

Monitoring call center work

Monitoring the process of distributing and processing calls in real time

Allows is keeping track of the whole process of call processing, by reviewing conveniently sorted. The set of current measures of call center performance

The number of simultaneously processed inbound calls
The number of simultaneously processed outbound calls
The number of working agents
The number of free agents
Maximum waiting time, etc.

The set of current measures of situations in queues

Maximum waiting time in queue
The number of abandoned calls
The number of scheduled outbound calls, etc.

The set of current measures of agent performance

The number of processed inbound and outbound calls
The number of missed calls
The average talk time
Work time, etc.

Graphical analyzer of trends of changing measures. Displays the trends of changes of supervisor-defined call center measures during any short time interval. Is used for tracking sudden changes – for example a spontaneous jump of load, – which enables to prevent a possible lowering of the service level. Notifications about overrun of a predefined interval by specific measures Configuring of notifications frees the supervisor from constantly monitoring the current call center work, while at the same time allowing the supervisor to maintain full control over key measures. Thus supervisor may timely intervene any call center activity when a warning appears, e.g. when the specified waiting time in queue is exceeded.

(c)Reporting & Follow-up

Scope of work

Development and maintenance of reporting
Report access management
Report analysis
Improvement initiatives
Reporting system adjustments

Reporting call center activity to senior level management and others in the organization can seem a daunting task. The wide variety of activities in a typical call center, the reality of senior management not having the time nor inclination to pour over detailed reports, and the fact that summary reports often gloss over important information all contribute to the challenge. Consequently, many diligently prepared reports either go unread or, worse, are misunderstood. Along with telephone contacts, a growing number of transactions involve e-mail, Internet services, IVR applications or some combination of these capabilities. As new ways of providing services are created – and subsequently demanded by customers – it becomes more critical and more involved to measure the service that customers are receiving, and their perceptions of that service.

Quality assurance:

Quality assurance is the process of verifying or determining whether products or services meet or exceed customer expectations. Quality assurance is a process-driven approach with specific steps to help define and attain goals. This process considers design, development, production, and service.

Quality assured service is the pillar of Service hosting business. Your service becomes popular when you ensure quality. Low price is another way to advance sales. But, if your service does not meet the required standards of quality, then the customer never uses it in future, even if you give it at the lowest price. Innovations, business strategies and trends keep changing. One thing that remains constant is consumers’ need for satisfaction. It is very important to understand the current and future customer needs, meet customer requirements, and strive hard to exceed customer expectations at all times.

Continual improvement must be a permanent objective of the company. The fact everyone knows is that the customers are willing to pay more to receive better service. However ensuring quality within the business is a discipline that is overlooked by companies, most of the time. It is usually not until you discover a major problem, that could have been avoided through quality control that you recognize the importance of it. Our customers are our major focus and eventually, they gain the benefits of the improvements that are made.

The Quality Management team and the Team Leader together follows up on the non-conformities for a team and conducts training sessions for the employees, as required. Thus ensures continual improvement for the services that we offer. Our customers are our major focus and eventually, they gain the benefits of the improvements that are made. Quality and customer delight have long been recognized as crucial for the success and survival of business in today’s competitive market. Grameenphone believes in providing an exceptional level of service to our customers. To support this commitment, we keep developing a number of initiatives that is clearly aimed at the continuous improvement of our services. With top quality service, we aim at creating delighted customers, who form the lifeblood of our business.

(a) We conduct regular quality monitoring and ensure that the quality of service provided is the best. Our customers are assured 100% quality service.

(b) Customers can save their valuable time, as the constant monitoring of the quality of the support engineers that work for them is done by our expert team.

(c) The techs get motivated each day, as we provide incentives and recognition based on the monitoring reports. This would definitely reflect in their work too.

Customer is the key of any service oriented Industry. Customer satisfaction involves the extent or the degree to which, a company’s services meet the requirements of its customer. Quality and customer delight have long been recognized as crucial for the success and survival of business in today’s competitive market. Quality Assurance is the process of verifying or determining whether service meets to exceed customer expectation. It is a process driven approach with specific steps to help define and attain goals. This process considers design, development and service.

Quality Assurance work under the customer services division. It is the bridge of all customer service division. Basically contact/call centre is a most important gate way of customer and the Organization. If any needs/assistant for customer, they communicate the customer manager via hotline. Subscribers also contact bye Fax, e-mail, and mail through complaint management. Call centre is the gate way of subscriber & the organization. Call centre agent always ready for fulfilling the customer satisfaction. Sometimes customer service agent got problem which was not solve this problem in meantime. Then customer manager need for help. This Situation Complaint management ready for help by back position. Basically call centre & complaint management work combined for ensure better customer service.

Quality Assurance is the process of verifying or determining whether service meets to exceed customer expectation. QA always observe how to deal with customer, how they meet the customer requirements. QA suggest the easy way of overcoming the problem.

QA introduce the efficient way of handling subscriber queries. Customer can save their valuable time, as the constant monitoring of the quality of support that work for them is done by expert team. QA try to forecast & maintain easier for customer by reducing the number of hotline OR waiting to reach the hotline. Ensure better service for the customer with one service solution & always establish quality standard dialogue.

An effective quality-assurance program can go a long way to increase buyer satisfaction and reduce service calls and customer complaints. It’s a true win-win situation: happier subscriber with better quality service, and happier Grameenphone with better profits.

Strategy and Planning

Strategy is defined as the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term. Strategy works to create an advantage for the organization, through configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations. Planning is a process for accomplishing purpose. It is blue print of business growth and a road map of development. It helps in deciding objectives both in quantitative and qualitative terms. It is setting of goals on the basis of objectives and keeping in view the resources. The planning helps to achieve these goals or target by using the available time and resources. To minimize the timing and resources also require proper planning.

It is also true that strategic planning may be a tool for effectively plotting the direction of a company; however, strategic planning itself cannot foretell exactly how the market will evolve and what issues will surface in the coming days in order to plan your organizational strategy. Therefore, strategic innovation and tinkering with the ‘strategic plan’ have to be a cornerstone strategy for an organization to survive the turbulent business climate.

Strategic planning is a very important business activity. It is also important in the public sector areas such as telecommunication. It is practiced widely informally and formally. Strategic planning and decision processes should end with objectives and a roadmap of ways to achieve those objectives. Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization over the long term: which achieves advantage for the organization through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectation.

Strategy and Planning take notes overall customer services and line to attack how to work, target of customer service and customer service resolution. Founding business opportunity is a continuous process. Grameenphone always initiate new product and

services for his existing and potential customer. It also initiate for employees Health Safety Security Environment. Implemented different technique and manage campaign. Strategy and Planning works for internal value creation (IVC) issue.

Language Skills Course for Customer Service

Language Skills Course for Customer Service, a training program to enhance Bengali standard pronunciation and that of technical words of Customer Managers was kicked off on May 17, 2009 at Junction Training Room, 2nd Floor, Nitol-Niloy Tower.

This training program was custom designed for a group of 30 Customer Managers with regards to their individual, as well as, group skills development need on aforementioned development

Each participant will receive 32 learning hours divided over 4 consecutive weeks through group lecture sessions, one on one coaching sessions and individual assessment and feedback. At the opening session, Shahriar A. Chowdhury, Head of HR Development & Yeasir Mahmood Khan, Head of People & Process Development were present to welcome the first and second batch of participants respectively. The course was organized by HR Development, designed and executed with cooperation of People & Process Development, Customer Service and IR Consulting Limited.

Scenario 1

When I join the Customer Service Division I was involved in People and Process Department. First day I was meeting in with Gjermund Lia. He informs me about the customer service. He said that Grameenphone is a largest mobile phone company in Bangladesh. Grameenphone always try to give better service for his subscriber and try to initiates new services. He inform us to Grameenphone filed its final application for initial public offering of USD 65 million with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in January 2009, and is awaiting approval from the SEC. He also introduced me different customer service division and head of the every division. Then Mr. Ruhul Amin Head of People and process Development assigned me in PPD.

Scenario 2

First day of the PPD I was sent to a nice man Mr. Maksudur Rahaman in training division. He discussed about the Grameenphone, its services, products, employees, and how to work customer service Division and its different department. Customer service division has seven departments under work Commercial division. Each department initiates different strategy and goal. Here PPD involve in Develop leadership, employee development and empowerment and establish customer friendly processes and efficient information flow. Then I was sent to my internship Supervisor Mr. Moshiur Rahman Coordinator of People and Process Development. Here my first assignment was too introduced in every section of PPD and how they work, what is their responsibility. Sami Saif boss of process management inform about responsibility of his department. Process Management basically works for customer. These departments classify the customer for implemented different product and services. Justify all documents about the product and services initiate it in different customer segment. New process improvement and make it more efficient for customer and initiate continuously Processes Improvement.

Then I participated in three days training session. Here first session is personal introductory session. At that time we play a game name as round table game. All trainers participated with us. Then they discussed us about needs of training, training objective and different session of our training. First they told us about the manner of customer manager, how the customer manager speaks.

In the afternoon session started with warm up. How to handle the phone? What are standard greetings? How much care of customer and why?

The last day of training taught us about friendly and caring interaction. It may be achieved if you follow the following rules:

Started with standard greetings and genuine smile
Active listening
Easy and clear communication with positive approach
Personal warmth, empathy and established report.

If you follow those rules, you made to be an efficient customer manager.

People and Process development always try to motivate the employee by employee recognition, engaging in various projects. Aim to create leadership quality in the employee. Thus goes on different process like campaign, seminar and training. He is trained with the capability how to maintain a subordinate official to chain of control.

It also undertakes various steps for the development and empowerment of the employees. For this employees are being engaged in project and improvement activities. The employees working avenue is widen and they are given more scope to utilize their potentiality and creativity with more freedom.

To encourage the employees it also organizes various recognized programmed. PPD runs an employer inspiring programs every month namely Inform and Involve. Inform and involve is divided into different session. These are gradually chill out session, Highlighting achievement, and future goal.

In this session PPD declares the nominees of best group, nominees of best employer. There one is selected as the best employee nomination and the best performer is awarded with a crest and a certificate. Some heart thrilling cultural ceremony are arrange through inform and involve and finally all employer is entertained with food box.

10^th & 11^th Inform & Involve

The 10^th & 11^th session of Inform & Involve was concluded successfully on April 30, 2009 & 14^th at the Customer Service Department.

“Inform & Involve,” is an inspirational employee event for Customer Service members. It is a unique team session to share operational updates, priorities and significant achievements, through participation and ‘chill-out’ sessions, where future goals and challenges of Customer Service are also discussed.

The program focuses on involving Grameenphone customer service members in continuous improvement efforts, taking in consideration each member’s opinion and views with due importance. The best performers of each department are also given formal appreciation and recognition during the event.

The session started with a surprise performance by Stian Syvertsen, Head of Telesales, Customer Service. Who welcomed everyone in Bangla and sang an english song, to the delight the audience. Gjermund Lia, Head of Customer Service, then took the floor and welcomed the members. He also thanked the guests from HR who also inspired the event with their presence. Gjermund continued the program with a presentation emphasizing the Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI), and Strategic objectives with major action plans, i.e. Outbound Project start-up, IPO Customer Service, Talent Hunt, some challenges and our way forward. This monthly sharing of updates involved the members and ensured their active participation and interaction with Management. Gjermund paid a special thanks to Mr. Ferdous Ahmed, Chief of Customer Management Department, for taking the time to be present at the program. He welcomed Ferdouss on the floor and requested him to share a few words. Mr. Ferdous Ahmed appreciated such an initiative and gave his thanks and gratitude to all the Customer Service Members for being there beside the customers.

The Performance Recognition Program for the months of March & April 2009 followed and Gjermund handed over the certificates, along with letter of appreciation by the department heads, to the best performers. Added attractions of the program included, songs, dances, news presentation and a humorous mime – all performed by our colleagues. Lastly the “Fastest Fingers” SMS contest and an effective Q&A session with the CS management team ended the session.

The “Inform & Involve” sessions are now being recognized as one of the major employee events in the year. The Customer Service Division looks forward to this successful journey in the months ahead.

Management’s job is to develop the business and manufacturing process. The operator’s simple work within the boundaries of this process. If you want to keep your customer you have to be very careful about solving customer’s problem. When we are spending our time by saying “I am sorry. I will fix it up”. At that time we should develop processes that will make it unnecessary to ever say” I am sorry”.

Preventing problem from not reoccurring, we should prevent problem from occurring in the first place. Customers and stockholders want perfection:

Quality: – is doing the job right every time.

Perfection: – is doing the right job right every time

Customer Service Overview

Customer service point:

Grameenphone service desk where launched in July with a mission to take customer service to the customer door step. As result, within early 2006, more than 600 GPSDs started countrywide operation down to every upzilla-level so as to serve the customer better. These service desks have remarkably reduced the travel time for customers from as much eight hours to a maximum of ten hour. Up reaching 5 days between 10:00 am -6:00pm , the original idea was later expanded to include the concept of mobile GPSD setup to meet the customers latent need for a mobile both from where customer managers could delivery the required after sales service.

Grameenphone centers provide a ‘one stop solution’ for all customers, with all telecommunications products and services under a single roof. The Grameenphone centers are designed to increase the customer satisfaction by integrating sales and after sales service in an open, friendly and comfortable environment. All these efforts have enabled Grameenphone to remain the most preferred mobile phone service in the Market.

Online customer Service

Grameenphone on line customer service:

Online-based customer service has completed its first year in december2007. Grameenphone online customer services stared journey with a very new idea and develop it into a reliable channel for customers to get information and service from Grameenphone. In spite of the low internet penetration rate in the country, a good number of Grameenphone customers used the Grameenphone online customer service as a customer window in the past year.

In addition, a large number of customers were also served through responses to written queries via email, faxes and latter.

The focus now is to move to the next level with an ambition “to provide the best- in-class customer service in Asia’s by establishing the most reliable, friendly and quality customer service.

Customer Services Scenario:

In order to retain the number of position in telecom operation of Bangladesh, Grameenphone Customer Service Division plays the most important role. Grameenphone main target is to offer their customers best services by providing proper valuation of subscriber’s precious money and time.The customer service division has set up a target of obtaining customer satisfaction level o at least 85%. These 85% is for the customer groups of Youth ( djuice), Channel 155(flexiload operation), EDGE, and consumer, Channel 155(GP centre employee), and billpay. On the other Grameenphone one of the business philosophies is to give the greatest priority to corporate clients. GP always try to maintain minimum 95% Customer satisfaction of businesses group. Second priority is given to consumer group in terms of service level.

A few of customer said that customer manager didn’t resolve their problems instantly. Customer Manager can resolve some problems without the dependency of other unit. Some problems that can’t resolve by a customer manager other himself for the reason of dependency of other. All customer manager did not access in all software because of security, privacy of subscribe and access limitation of those software.

Sometimes the service attitude of customer manager can make subscriber dissatisfied. On the average a customer managers have to receive minimum 150 calls per day with maintaining a certain log in hour and it is not an easy to maintain a good services attitude at the end of the day as in every day. It s usually that some customer done a rude behave Cuanager and sometimes use slang to the customer manager. For this it is not easy to provide a good service attitude to the up coming customer. Call centre management should look after the service attitude of customer manager and give them proper direction as well as look after their mental situation.

Voice call through PayForMe

Emergency!! Need to make a call – but you do not have sufficient balance.

Do not worry – use Grameenphone’s PayForMe. Now, a GP subscriber can call another GP subscriber even if the caller does not have sufficient balance.

To avail this service, a subscriber needs to dial *123* followed by the intended number and press the hash key (#), i.e. *123*017xxxxxxxxx#. If the intended receiver agrees to pay, the receiver will be charged for the call (The caller must have an active SIM to avail this service).

The intended receiver of the PayForMe call will hear a recorded message asking whether s/he is willing to receive the call and accept the charges. If willing, the receiver will press 1, or else, press 2. Usual GP-GP tariff as per the receiver’s product will be applicable (peak, off-peak and pulse rate included; but not F&F rates).

A maximum of 4 (four) PayForMe call can be made in a day. If a particular subscriber (A) is rejected twice by another particular subscriber (B) in a single day, then the subscriber (A) will not be able to make any PayForMe requests to that particular subscriber (B) for the rest of that day. That is, in total, each subscriber can make a maximum of 4 PayForMe calls can be made in a particular day and a maximum of 2 (two) PayForMe calls can be made to a particular subscriber in a particular day.

Any GP Pre-paid (SMILE, djuice and Business Solutions Prepaid) or Post-paid (Xplore and Business Solutions Postpaid) subscriber can enjoy this service.

Stay Close

Welcome to the largest family in Bangladesh! With 90,000 points of sales and over 5,000 dedicated employees committed to provide you with the best customer experience throughout the country, we are committed to help you “Stay Close”.

Everything we do is a relentless pursuit to help you to stay close to your near and dear ones and to the things that matter in your lives. Life takes its own path where distance is created between you and your loved ones. In overcoming those barriers, building and nurturing relationships, Grameenphone is proud to be with you always. That is the promise that has made us a family of over 18 million members. We are committed in our efforts to help you stay close.

Benefits

Our customer support team will assist you with the following services:

Take care of any specific queries you may have, or respond to any special needs for assistance.
Provide your company with overview of all your company’s subscriptions and mobile users.
Provide you with an overview of all mobile usage and decide billing options (e.g. itemized billing, pre-paid invoicing)
Make all the necessary arrangements for you to subscribe our service/s (without your physical presence in the customer service center.)
Add new users to your account or create new Closed User Group (CUG) for special call rates.
Set up of additional features such as Mobile Data Access, Mobile E-mail etc.

Recommendations

Grameenphone is doing well in terms of different mobile operators. But during my internship period I felt that there should be some measure to enhance those operation and in some cases to recover some lacking. Today’s customers are much more conscious than previous. Now they have lots of option. They can choose their product from among many competitors. So it’s getting tough for the companies to retain customer. Companies should remember one thing maximizing profit in the short run doesn’t provide the best return on investment organizations that focus on building their reputation are going to provide the best long term.

Customer remembers a company under 2 conditions:-

When companies provide extremely poor products and services
When companies provide surprisingly good products or service. What I felt is like this-

Today is competitive market. Here scope not only in making call but also different business segment. Increasing the capacity of the system infrastructure based on the present subscriber telecom operators concentrate mainly on the selling of their products but little consideration on the after sales service. For this drawback, it is observed that most of the subscribers experience services dissatisfaction within a sort period of their product purchase. This cause the customer to discontinue utilization of the product giving rise to lose of company revenue and earning an appealing reputation.

GP reduces their tariff, but it is applicable in different time schedule. Subscribers want a flat time and tariff. So they should take those kinds of marketing plan.
Need more awareness build up about dialing code (121 15) to reach to customer Manager. So that individuals who require the immediate assistant of agents do not have to go through the botheration of listening of the entire menu of IVR at their expenses.
Try to keep the Customer Managers motivated for providing better services. This will make the Customer feel that the company regards them as an essential part of their organization and is always available to provide them with satisfactory customer service.
Increasing manpower for call centre and build up them accordingly by allocating proper shifting. This ensures that the customers have to undergo prolonged waiting time in order to receive any service. More over, it also certifies that the company can handle the call pressure during peak hours. So that they do not lose any customer.
Increase different Value added services. Because subscriber wants new product and services.
Uses of GPRS, Welcome Tune and Ring Tones/logos are expectable but they need to increase highest level of user to promote the VAS. Even they should inform the customer about positive benefit of total VAS.
Using Satisfaction level regarding the different products should be retained by taking necessary measures like monitoring and controlling the total operation, if there is any error. A research can be conducted on the dissatisfied consumers to sort out the factors that determine their dissatisfaction.
It has been found that the concentration of the consumers is most within a specific range of incoming person. Some measures or strategy should be taken as if call price can be decrease. So that low incoming citizen can be use. And beside that consumers can increase.
The most stimulating factor that attracts consumer is the better service of the Grameenphone. Measures should be taken as if it can maintain this goodwill as well other aspect of the Grameen should be improvised
All over they should focus on more active advertisements on different media to introduce there product and services on mass people.

Conclusion

Objective of this internship program have not been fulfilled with complete satisfaction. However, highest effort has been given to achieve the objective of customer satisfaction regarding different types Customer Services of Grameenphone. The mobile industry is growing at a phenomenal pace these days. With an annual growth rate of 132% in the industry itself, Grameenphone can be said to be the fastest growing industry in the country. Grameenphone made its mark with the launch of its first package where mobile was made more affordable. It has kept its promise of making mobiles affordable not only through reducing its own prices, but it has managed to shake the rest of the industry into taking action. The whole industry is now at the height of its competition, with customers quietly reaping the benefits offered them. Through lower call rate, innovative packages with free sms, thank you bonus and talk time Grameenphone has been able to reach all levels of customers very soon. At present more then 21000000 subscribers are the proud for the company to develop a favorable association with the brand image. Though Grameenphone is providing some unique facilities to gain customer attention but due to moderate network coverage it has failed retain their customer. Grameenphone is already holding Number one position and as a brand is liked by the customers’ also different Products/VAS are attractive. If Grameenphone now concentrate on improve their network and reduce all problem different types of VAS then it will be very constructive for their sustainable growth in telecommunication market of Bangladesh.

So the best in class Customer Services in Asia to gain competitive advantage for Grameenphone in the market place.