Airtel Zambia Pulls Airtel Money 100% Bonus

Without warning Airtel has pulled the 100% bonus airtime for Airtel Money customers. This was experienced by the Writer who noted that transactions after yesterday were coming without the bonus though the notification still reads like you ought to receive the freebie.

Screenshot confirming no bonus.

No comment yet from Airtel Money Team or the Airtel Marketing Team. But inside sources point to the fact that the many promotions that are going on, including this one, which was aimed at increasing signups for the service, have led to a proliferation of bonus airtime in people’s accounts. Most of the airtime ends up being forfeited as the amounts are too huge to exhaust in the given time period or the customer has more than one account of freebies. At any given point, subscribers may not even be aware they are using their freebies to link it to the benefit of a service/product or promotion.

Whether it is a lack of etiquette, poor communication or mismanagement of promotions. Pulling the plug on a promotion gone wrong or new features is a common thing for Airtel Zambia.

Much needs to be done in order to manage customers’ expectations as well as harmonise communication with changes so that customers are kept up to date. On the other hand, it starts with something as simple as getting only the users of the service from customer base, and sending them a simple SMS prior to such a ‘drastic’ measure. Or even better, a tweet of under 140 characters can spread the word!