How the #MTN1HourChat with MTN Zambia CEO Charles Molapisi had no spaka

On Tuesday 8th December 2015 MTN Zambia’s CEO Charles Molapisi held an hour-long online chat with MTN subscribers and others on the company’s local Facebook page, inviting the public to ask questions about MTN. IT started off badly, with MTN not posting in the event page they created but using a post on their main page, which confused many eager customers who kept asking what time the event would start. There was also a 15 min delay, meaning the 1 hour was actually just 45 minutes of the CEO’s time online. Keep your word much?!

What was disappointing is most of the questions being asked were mostly questions that subscribers can get answers for if they called customer care, showing how unfamiliar they are with MTN products and services even though operational for many months. This should mean they launch products without making sure the basics of it are understood. Questions ranged from customers asking promotional messages to be stopped, why they weren’t picked to win in MTN’s promotions, why their data was disappearing from their phones, and why the network was slow in the areas they live. The problem we noted was how the responses to these questions were very vague, ending with a ‘matter will be addressed’ ‘ please send us your number’ or ‘we will look into that’, very unsatisfactory answers for the one time people got a chance to meet the top-most person of the firm.

We also noticed that rather that the MTN Zambia page itself was active throughout the conversation in helping deliver the most ambiguous responses ever!This would have been their moment to explain things to the subscribers that were online during the chat very clearly so others can learn from the response once and for all.

On average, the chat was a fail for us, because it failed to give solutions to the few serious questions that were asked.

MTN commented in the chat how this was the first chat of many so we hope they come up with a better strategy for the next one and give satisfactory answers.