I am a Safaricom customer, and to be precise, a Safaricom postpaid customer. I have two lines, my main phone line and a data line for surfing. Every month I pay about 9,000 bob between the two lines to Michael Joseph and his merry men. Why am I on Safaricom? A number of reasons, the top two being the company I work for is a Safaricom partner and it won’t do to call a Safaricom partner on a Zain/Yu/Orange line, and the other reason is that changing my number will give me more grief than I care to imagine.

The mechanics are simple. As a postpaid customer I have signed a contract (two actually, one per line) binding me and my soul to Michael Joseph for the next calendar year.

What I failed to realize is that there is an official motto within Safaricom that states the following:

Postpaid customers are irritants. They are the stuff you find between your toes after a hard day of ploughing and tilling the fields

Why? Because being a postpaid customer is an endless series of grief.

1. You get two or three threatening SMS messages a month to settle your bill, whether or not you have paid
2. You get your bills, generally two or three months late, with an absurd disclaimer “ignore this bill if you have already paid”
3. You need to write a letter to do pretty much anything. I left a customer care lady talking to herself when she informed me that I needed to write a letter to them to sign up for M-Pesa. Well, you can S-Mother your L-Etters and S-Hove them S-Omewhere the S-Un don’t S-hine
4. Absolutely raw deals in all the promotions that Safaricom offers

That last one is what I find HUGELY irritating. Why should postpaid customers be short changed? Isn’t our money legal tender? Look at the Jibambie promotion. The rate postpaid customers got was a shilling higher than that of pre-paid customers. Absolute bullshit. And in several capmaigns,postpaid customers are not eligible.

Here is the latest promotion I received in my email

Good morning,

Safaricom is pleased to announce the Niko na Safaricom “Get 50% extra airtime Top up Promotion” where subscribers will get 50% extra FREE airtime on all top-ups of Ksh 50 to Ksh 1000 e.g. Top-up Bamba 50 get 75/- airtime, Bamba 100 get 150…… 1000 get 1500/-

Promotion Mechanics: 

• ALL top-ups during the promotion period, from Ksh 50 to Ksh 1000 using scratch-cards, electronic vouchers (EAD), ATM qualify for the discount.
• You must top-up with Ksh 50 or more in one-go to qualify e.g. 3 Bamba 20 top-ups will not qualify
• Promotion runs from 0600hrs to 2359hrs on Wednesday 15th July 2009.

Note:

• MPESA top-ups and Sambaza DO NOT qualify
• Offer available on all PrePay tariffs i.e. Ongea, Safari, Super Taifa and Staff Tariffs only
• The extra airtime will carry the same validity as the normal airtime
• The credit can be used to make both off-net and on-net calls/SMS and browse the Internet.

Subscribers can top-up as many times during the promotion. Each top-up of Ksh 50 or more will receive the bonus airtime.

Kind regards

*******

Well the hell with you and the Horse you rode in on.

I am dying to know the good reason that I am sure exists why I am not eligible to participate in this offer. Clearly postpaid customers hawakao na Safaricom. Are we on Zain and yet don’t know about it?

I wrote back immediately demanding to know the basis behind this absurd discrimination. Knowing their ostrich strategy when dealing with customers, I’ll be surprised if I got a response.

Complacent indeed is the company that keeps giving its customers the middle finger.