Tonderai Rutsito
TelOne last week gave away a brand new Chevrolet, two return air tickets to South Africa including accommodation (bed and breakfast) among other prizes in the Talk, Surf and Win promotion. The promotion was part of the State Enterprise’s turnaround strategy aimed at boosting revenue.
The car was won by Mr Greater Sibanda of Gweru after he joined the ADSL platform.
An elated Mr Sibanda thanked TelOne for coming up with the promotion which was aimed at rewarding the customer.
“I am very excited and shocked that I have won a car,” he said.
TelOne managing director Mrs Chipo Mtasa said the promotion was a success as it resulted in an increase in revenue and saw 6 000 new subscribers joining the ADSL platform.
She added that other strategies they used to boost revenue inflows included a nationwide door to door debt collection that was done over three months.
“We managed to collect US$80 million and are still owed over US$200million while US$65 million has been written off,” she said.
Mrs Mtasa also indicated that they also managed to record some successes last year such as the commissioning of the Victoria Falls transmission link enabling Zimbabwe to successfully host the United Nations World Tourism Organisation general assembly in Victoria Falls in August.
She added that their focus was on expanding their copper line network to meet the increase in demand for landline plus other Value Added Services like call conferencing, call diversion, toll free and ADSL broad band delivered through copper speeds.
“Interestingly the TelOne landlines still continues to deliver crystal clear sounds at the lowest tariffs tagged at 5 cents per minute on landline to landline while it costs 18cents for calls to mobile phones.
“Communication should not cost an arm and a leg so TelOne will indeed be around for a long time to meet the needs of corporates and business landlines are still relevant to any serious business. Having a landline is an indication of solid address and traceable business reference,” said Mrs Mutasa.
She also said they have over 300 000 operational landlines, against a capacity of 500 000 while 35 000 lines were closed since 2009.
Mrs Mtasa said although they recorded some success they have had to contend with challenges arising from failure by customers to settle their bills, cable theft and vandalism.
“We are addressing these challenges through the rehabilitation of the nation’s copper infrastructure while some outstanding bills are being cancelled to give our customers some relief,” she said.
TelOne has also commissioned new shops in Borrowdale, Westgate mall as well as Burnside in Bulawayo and is planning to open additional shops in Chitungwiza, Kamfinsa and at Joina City this year.