NE BUSINESS BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, JULY 2
Bharti Airtel on Friday announced all-in-one solution for homes that enables bundling of two or more of its services – fibre, DTH, mobile – entitling users to benefits such as single bill and priority resolution of faults, as the telco looks to bolster its Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).
The company said the new offering ‘Airtel Black’ is compliant with TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) norms.
“Bharti Airtel…today announced the launch of its latest innovation Airtel Black – India’s first all-in-one solution for homes… Airtel Black is the new programme for the discerning, quality-seeking customers,” the company said in a statement.
The company is offering flexibility to create customised plans on Airtel Black. It has also lined up four new fixed plans with different combinations, where prices range from Rs 998 a month (for 2 mobile connections and 1 DTH connection) to Rs 2,099 a month (for 3 mobile connections, 1 Fibre connection, 1 DTH connection).
The plans have already gone live in the market.
Airtel Black does away with the hassle of managing multiple bill payment dates, navigating customer care IVRs, or interacting with separate service providers.
To a question on these rates stacking up higher than the bundled plans available earlier, Shashwat Sharma, Director – Marketing and Communications, Bharti Airtel, asserted it would be ‘unfair’ to draw a one-to-one comparison.
“One Airtel plan was our beta, in a way. This is a completely different programme, this is all about premium experience with customers, premium onboarding. Some of the bundles which were running earlier catered to limited set of customers,” Sharma explained.
Customers are looking for more data today. So the plans have been tuned to needs of customers in the current context where more data is being offered with miniscule price that has been changed, all aligned to plans that customers want, Sharma noted.
On whether Airtel is looking at APRU hike through these plans, the company responded in affirmative.
“This congregates the high value customers together. The biggest thing in telecom is customers are willing to pay for a great services and this brings that to fore. For us, it is a very strong foray for strengthening our ARPUs going forward,” Sharma added.
Customer’s home has become the single place for both work life and personal life, in today’s world. The need for high speed data, the entertainment at home and the requirement for seamless connectivity on mobile, is now one holistic need, Airtel statement said.
Yet, these services have historically been bought and managed as individual services.
“Customers have expressed their frustration on multiple bills to be paid on different due dates across the months, services getting switched off due to forgotten recharges, and difficulty in managing services from multiple local service providers. We decided to innovate to solve this customer problem,” it added.
Under ‘Airtel Black’, customer will connect to a care representative within 60 seconds of calling, the company promised.
The team of experts managing the customer relationship keeps in touch for all of customers’ requirements and solves them on a priority basis, it added.
“As an integrated operator, Airtel is uniquely positioned to deliver an exceptional experience on all home services – fibre, DTH and mobile, to our customers. And Airtel Black is focussed on doing just that,” Sharma said.
