VIL Offers a Unified Vodafone RED Experience to All Postpaid Customers Across Indian Telecom Circles

Vodafone Idea Limited, one of India’s leading telecom service providers, today announced the completion of its postpaid consolidation journey by bringing all Idea post-paid subscribers under a single umbrella of Vodafone RED. All Vodafone Idea postpaid customers can now avail benefits of the Vodafone RED plan, a uniform customer service, and an enhanced digital experience.

This consolidation is a major step towards its synergy realisations and has led to process standardization for both the retail and enterprise customers.

It will enable the company to provide a uniform customer experience through self-service channels with enriched menu options on IVR, USSD, MyVodafone App and Websites for availing products, services and making payments. Erstwhile Idea postpaid customers now do not need to go through a separate on-boarding and service experience. They can now avail Red Family subscription, a single bill for entire family, access to Vodafone Play, premium content and a bouquet of other value added services.

Announcing the completion of postpaid consolidation, Vishant Vora, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone Idea said, “The consolidation of Vodafone and Idea postpaid customers is a major step towards our vision of one company, one network. One of the biggest and fastest migration in the telecom space, this has led to operational synergies and process standardisation for both our postpaid retail and enterprise customers. It enables us to provide enhanced customer experience to our postpaid users.”

With this consolidation, Call Centre Agents will be able to serve customers better using the CRM insights provided through 360 degree view on customer information, interactions and service profiles. Real time rating functionality will ensure accurate unbilled charging for customers at any given point of time. Customer will also be able to receive timely notification and alerts for any over usage. Moreover automated credit monitoring and dunning can trigger on time to ensure customer does not incur huge Bills thus avoiding Bill shocks.

Vodafone Idea has successfully integrated two strong networks in 92% of the districts, taking the integrated circles to 18. The deployment of new age technologies such as M-MIMO, DSR, Hybrid Cloud, OpenRan to enhance capacities and increased 4G coverage has resulted in richer customer experience.

During the pandemic the company has introduced several initiatives like recharges and payments via ATM/ USSD/ other digital platforms and launched AI powered customer service Bot on WhatsApp to keep its customers connected with their loves ones.

Renault India Organises Welcome Back Service Camp from July 13-26 at all Dealer Workshops

Renault India has announced the commencement of a nationwide after-sales service initiative, ‘Renault Welcome Back Camp’ from July 13 - July 26, 2020 at all its dealer workshops across India. This initiative further strengthens Renault’s commitment towards offering a delightful service experience to its customers.

Renault India dealerships have introduced stringent safety and hygiene measures as it welcomes back customers across all its touchpoints.

As part of the ‘Renault Welcome Back Camp’, Renault India customers can avail up to 50% discount on select Accessories, 10% attractive discount on select spare parts, 15% on labour charges, 5% on engine oil change and additional 5% discount on select parts & accessories for MYR registered customers. Renault India will also provide 10% discount on ‘Renault Secure’, which covers Extended Warranty and Roadside Assistance. The company has also introduced benefits of up to 50% on several value-added services.

In addition to the comprehensive car check-up facilities, several fun-filled activities will be organized for customers with assured gifts, making it an exciting and cherishing experience for the customers. All Renault dealerships are ensuring utmost safety and social distancing measures for these activities under standard safety protocols in view of the health scenario.

The Welcome Back Camp underlines Renault’s commitment to offer a superlative brand ownership experience to our customers. Renault Service Camps have always received an overwhelming response from customers across India and the company will continue to build on such customer connect activities as it expands its footprint in India. In the last few years, Renault India has taken major actions across its business strategy, operations, product range, customer satisfaction & engagement, with the objective of strengthening the base, to further build the brand in India.

Renault India has a widespread presence with more than 370 sales and 450 service touchpoints across the country with benchmark sales and service quality.

ABOUT RENAULT

Renault India Pvt. Ltd. is a fully owned subsidiary of Renault S.A.S. France. Renault India cars are manufactured in the manufacturing facility located in Oragadam, Chennai, with a capacity of 480,000 units per annum. Renault India also has a widespread presence of more than 370 sales and 450 service touchpoints, which include 257 service workshops and 215 Workshop On Wheels locations across the country, with benchmark sales and service quality.

Renault India’s product line up and services have seen strong recognition among customers and industry experts alike, winning more than 60 titles, making Renault India one of the most awarded automotive brands in a single year in India. The Renault KWID has already bagged 32 awards, including 10 ‘Car of the Year’ Awards.

Airtel Declares War on Service Failure and Targets Resolution of Every Customer Query

Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s largest integrated telco, is further raising the bar as part of its mission to deliver best-in-class services to customers.

Keeping consumer obsession at the core of its DNA, Airtel today said that it has set itself a target of answering and resolving every single customer query, learn quickly from failures and ensure they don’t get repeated. And the company is taking this message to customers across India through a bold multi-channel marketing campaign [‘watch it here https://youtu.be/Gqe3uJLLV3c].

The current times have put telecom services and reliable connectivity at the core of the daily lives of customers. Be it Work from Home, Virtual Classrooms, Online shopping, or Digital Entertainment, telecom networks have become the backbone for accomplishing most things from within the safety of our homes.

Consumer centricity has always been at the heart of everything that Airtel does, but during these testing times, the brand has realized that a network provider’s responsibility towards its customers has never been greater. Airtel acknowledges that it not only has the responsibility to provide access to high-quality telecom services but also to give answers to all their service related queries by responding and resolving them in a quick and transparent manner.

Says Shashwat Sharma, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel, “The relationship between Airtel and its customers has never been more important, and to serve them even better we have decided to take our customer obsession to the next level. We know that "ZERO questions" is an IMPOSSIBLE utopian thought especially for a telecom brand, but that won’t stop us from trying because we know that the closer we get to ZERO, the happier our customers will be. We promise to be humble, learn every time we fail and be relentless in our approach. For us, this is not just a campaign, we are now re-engineering the entire organization towards this goal and are obsessed with building a culture of consumer centricity.”

The company has already taken big strides in this journey and these are some of its key recent initiatives to make sure that customers get the best possible service experience:

Network Technology: In the last three years, Airtel has invested over Rs 70,000 crores in high-speed network rollouts. Airtel has led the introduction of new technologies such as pre-5G Massive MIMO and Carrier Aggregation. The result is Airtel being consistently rated as India’s top mobile network by multiple experts.

More recently, Airtel became the first mobile operator in India to launch Voice over Wi-Fi to solve the indoor coverage issues faced by its customers. Today, millions of happy customers enjoy seamless indoor coverage over Airtel Vo-Wi-Fi.

For its busy postpaid consumers, Airtel’s launched Platinum Network. This gives its premium users priority in both network as well as services across their touch-points, so that network and telecom related issues don’t disrupt their hectic schedules.

Digital Gateways: To help customers recharge during COVID-19 lockdown, Airtel launched ‘Superhero’ - a first of its kind program that allowed Airtel customers to recharge the prepaid accounts of fellow Airtel customers through Airtel Thanks app. For every recharge, the Super-hero makes a 4% retail commission. This helped millions of customers who don’t have access to online recharge options or are not digitally savvy. Over a million Airtel customers are registered as Superheroes.

Culture of Customer Obsession: The Airtel Management Board meets every day in the morning to review customer queries, resolution mechanisms and timelines, and the learnings from customer feedback.           

Airtel’s new campaign will run across TV, Digital and Print to communicate the company’s promise to customers. The campaign has been conceived by Dentsu-Taproot, led by Pallavi Chakravarti and team. To watch the TVC click here https://youtu.be/Gqe3uJLLV3c.

Need of the Hour: How Robots will Change the Approach of Travel and Hospitality Sector

Robots have started to impact our lives and are the need of the hour, with respect to the current pandemic situation. From cleaning floors, swimming pools, to serving at restaurants and greeting at airports, they are everywhere. These little technological wonders are fast invading our world to make it an easier place to live in. Infact, a study has revealed that service robots in hotels could help boost the hospitality and travel industry, which had somewhere taken a backseat during this Covid-19 outbreak.

With shopping malls, airports, railway stations, offices, restaurants opening up, deployment of these non–human devices is need of the hour. These tiny robots can be the "New Normal" for maintaining proper social distancing, hygiene and constant monitoring. In the days to come, these contactless technologies will revolutionise the way travel and hospitality sector approach for the post COVID world.

Many of the commercial establishments like Hotels, Hospitals have already started to deploy them to limit human interventions. For instance -Hotel chains like Hyatt, Dr Reddy’s, and ITC are already taking help of floor cleaning robots from Milagrow Humantech, to disinfect and maintain hygiene as they started operations, FabHotels, one of the leading budget hotel chains in India has also been taking various initiatives and implementing a host of measures for its guests and employees.

These floor disinfecting robots can navigate and sanitize the floors without any human intervention. It can destroy COVID spores on floor surfaces (if any)using sodium hypochlorite solution, as recommended by ICMR. As commercial establishments started opening for the public again but following these numerous measures, it would be interesting to witness how these devices will shift the approach to a contactless world.

Vestige Ventures Into Echo-Friendly Automobile Care with MACH-DRIVE NanoEnergizer

Key Points

* Technology that can significantly reduce vehicle emissions and improve engine life

* MACH-DRIVE NanoEnergizer can reduce overall emissions by up to 70%

* Can help reduce fuel consumption by up to 15%

Vestige Marketing Pvt. Ltd., one of India’s leading direct selling companies that provides hygiene, health and wellness products, has launched the first of their new portfolio of automotive products. The company launched MACH-DRIVE NanoEnergizer, an engine oil additive that will enhance the longevity of the engine, reduce engine drag, friction and noise. It uses a unique and revolutionary technology, which contains 20 Nano Metre Platinum Coated Zirconium powder emulsified in mineral oil. The platinum ceramic coating helps protect the engine, bring down fuel consumption by up to 15 % and reduce harmful emission by up to 70%. This is ideal for engine restoration and protection.

MACH-DRIVE NanoEnergizer is compatible with petrol, diesel and CNG engines and for two/three and four wheelers. It is a revolutionary technology, which improves the engine efficiency for the next 30,000-40,000 kms.

Commenting on the launch, Mr Gautam Bali, MD, Vestige Marketing Pvt Ltd said, “Our strength is our health and wellness portfolio. With this new product launch, we have embarked upon a journey to make a contribution to saving the environment. The lockdown brought the pollution levels significantly down. We must do our best to protect the environment and our new product, MACH-DRIVE NanoEnergizer, is Vestige’s initiative towards that. The revolutionary product can cut vehicle emissions down by 70%.”

As per data, approximately 1.4 crore two-wheelers and 44 lakh cars are sold every year. With the use of MACHDRIVE NanoEnergizer, approximately 20% CO2 emission can be reduced. MACH-DRIVE NanoEnergizer’s single time coating lasts up to 30,000-40,000 kms and keeps the engine almost as good as new. This technology helps in saving at least 15% fuel.

Will Nokia close its gaming service N-Gage?

Nokia will close its battered gaming service N-Gage next year, acknowledging failure in its first major services offering.

The handset maker's mobile gaming push has encountered major challenges over the years, with consumers first shunning its dedicated gaming phones.

The online gaming service, opened last year, never moved beyond a niche audience.

Nokia has started to look for new revenues from online services as its traditional handset market is maturing, with games and music being the first focus areas of the cellphone maker.

"We will no longer publish new games for the N-Gage platform," Nokia said on its N-Gage blog.

It said the games from its first major services offering can be purchased until the end of September 2010, and the community site will remain in operation throughout 2010.

After closing the N-Gage service it will continue to sell mobile games at its Ovi Store, a smaller rival to Apple's popular App Store.

Agencies

Has US companies cut 4,91,000 jobs during April 2009?

In a possible sign that the worst may be over for the country's labour market, a new report shows that American private companies slashed as many as 4,91,000 jobs in April, much less than expected.

The latest ADP National Employment Report showed that non-farm private employment fell 4,91,000 from "March to April 2009 on a seasonally adjusted basis".

Experts were expecting that the decline would be more than 6,00,000.

"The estimated change of employment from February to March was revised by 34,000, from a decline of 742,000 to a decline of 7,08,000," ADP said in a statement on Wednesday.

According to the report, private employment in the service-providing sector plunged by 2,29,000 in April. During the same period, jobs in the goods-producing segment decreased 2,62,000 while that in the manufacturing sector dropped by 1,59,000.

Last month, construction employment dropped 95,000, which was also the "smallest" in nearly six months.

"This was its twenty-seventh consecutive monthly decline, and brings the total decline in construction jobs since the peak in January 2007 to 1,261,000. April's decline, however, was the smallest since November of 2008," the statement said.

Large businesses, defined as those with 500 or more workers, witnessed their employment decline by 77,000 whereas medium-size businesses -- having between 50 and 499 workers -- skid by 2,31,000.

Further, small-size entities, which have less than 50 workers, saw a fall of 1,83,000 in employment.

"The employment declines among medium-and small-size businesses
indicate that the recession continues to spread beyond manufacturing and housing-related activities to almost every area of the economy," it noted.

The report sponsored by ADP is maintained by Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC and it is a measure of employment derived from an anonymous subset of roughly 5,00,000 US business clients.

In the last six months of 2008, the subset represented nearly 4,00,000 US business clients representing nearly 24 million American employees working in all private industrial sectors, ADP said.

Agencies

Can an iPod be a poor man's iPhone?

I try to keep a stiff upper lip about not having an iPhone. Just couldn't afford it — not with the $75 a month or so AT&T charges for service on top of the $199 upfront cost for the device.

I could, however, afford the $229 iPod Touch — and got it as a gift, as it happened. It has most of the same goodies: a Web browser, e-mail, YouTube. And it stores way more music than the iPhone. (Ha!) Plus, the other day I used it to call China.

Yup, a call around the world — on a device that doesn't have a phone. A handful of applications on Apple Inc.'s iTunes store will let you do this, as long as you're in a Wi-Fi hot spot.

My iPhone complex hasn't disappeared, but at least now I have a device that looks just like it, has no monthly service fees, and lets me make free or cheap phone calls.

The best part of these applications — which require the second-generation iPod Touch that came out last year — is that they are free to download, and calls to other people using the same app won't cost you anything.

Two of the services I've tried, Truphone and Fring, will also let you make free calls to Google Talk users and type instant messages to friends online. Both automatically queue up a list of buddies from different services you might have, including Gmail chat, AIM and MSN Messenger, once you log in.

But it's Truphone's pay feature that puts it ahead of the others. TruPhone charges you to make calls to landlines or regular cell phones, but generally at better rates than most wireless carriers. And it's upfront about what you pay.

Your balance — which you can add to with a credit card, either on the device or on your computer browser — pops up with the dial screen. Calls in the U.S. are all 5 cents per minute (2 cents if you sign up to pay a $4 monthly fee).

Rates outside the U.S. vary wildly but you can check in the application before you dial. To call cell phones in China, for instance, is only 5 cents per minute, while France is 25 cents. Antarctica? A whopping $2.25.

You can make regular calls with Fring using a Skype account, but that's another layer to deal with.

The calls on these services sound pretty good, a little tinny but clearer than my regular cell phone connection. IPod Touch users will need Apple's $29 ear buds that have a tiny microphone on the back of the volume control along the cord.

The most serious drawback is the most obvious: While the iPhone uses AT&T's wireless network to provide Internet access anywhere, on the iPod Touch you'll need to stick to Wi-Fi hot spots. For rural or suburban dwellers who don't encounter lots of free Wi-Fi zones, that may very well mean limiting yourself to your house, or other places where there's a computer with the same Internet phone call capabilities anyway.

That means these apps probably won't replace your cell phone. But they can moderate your iPhone envy.

Agencies