By
in
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The world of sales and marketing is a fascinating one. Those people take time to study human behaviour and then craft sales tricks and marketing strategies to exploit it.
I have always found the .99 trick interesting. Apparently, 9.99 induces a different kind of feeling from 10.00 hence why we see that kind of pricing decision.
The marketing trick of repackaging the same product is also neat. “Same great product, new packaging” would not be a thing if it didn’t work.
Then we have the trick that Econet used with their bundles recently. It’s similar to the one used by supermarkets where they place certain goods at certain heights on certain shelves. This arrangement has a massive impact on which products customers pick up.
Econet rearranged and tweaked their USD airtime and data menus. I’m sure they will say they streamlined the menus to enhance customer experience. Whatever they tell us and whatever the reasons were it had a predictable impact – some people could not find the cheap bundles.
Yes, the streamlining effort somehow hid the cheaper bundles. I was talking to some older ladies who have been buying more expensive bundles than they wanted to buy. They swore there was no option for the cheaper price and yet it’s still there. It’s just not in the place they would think to look.
I don’t blame them. Going through USSD menus is tedious. Once you go down a certain submenu, you have to start over again. There is no way to go back to the main menu once you go to the “Data” submenu for example. It’s by design.
Let’s save you the trouble and go through the menus and list all the options you will find. You start off by dialing *143# and you’ll get the following: For You, Data, Combos, Voice, SMS, Roaming and Account Services.
Do note that O/Peak stands for Off-Peak. This is between 11pm and 4am.
I am not sure if this is personalised but choosing this option leads to 2 options:
They are in that order. The cheapest two options are on the second page. You have to choose “More Bouquets” to see them.
2. WhatsApp + O/Peak has the following options:
3. General Data + O/Peak has the following options, split into Hourly, Daily and Weekly:
4. Smart Gifting (for when you want to buy data for someone else)
2. WhatsApp + O/Peak has the following options:
3. Data + Voice has the following options:
4. Data + SMS has the following options:
5. Data + Voice + SMS has the following option:
6. Data + Ecosure has the following option:
1. Voice Daily has the following option:
2. Voice Weekly has the following options:
3. Voice Bi-Weekly has the following options:
4. Voice Tri-Weekly has the following option:
4. Voice Monthly has the following option:
2. SMS Weekly has the following option:
3. SMS Bi-Weekly has the following option:
4. SMS Monthly has the following option:
Has the following options:
It takes time to get used to a new menu layout, especially when you’re used to choosing your bundles by muscle memory. When your favorite bundle is no longer where you expect to see it, it can be frustrating.
It’s even more frustrating when you have to navigate the menu using USSD, which forces you to start over after every submenu.
Some of the choices Econet made with the new layout do not make sense. The worst one is the $1 FCA USD Recharge which is hidden in the Combos menu where it does not belong. In fact all the simple $1 data options are not in a place that makes sense.
Do I believe they were hidden so you think they are nolonger available and go for more expensive bundles?
The fact that Econet purposefully places the most expensive option first in every submenu, with the cheapest option sometimes on the third page, is a clear indication of their sales tactics. They are using these tricks to push people to buy more expensive bundles.
So, I guess we cannot say some of the layout choices do not make sense. They make sense when the goal is to get you to purchase more expensive bundles. I don’t begrudge the sales and marketing team for doing this.
Econet now has RCS. It’s like free unlimited texts, but that’s not even the best part!
Econet sees 58% and 19% increases in data and voice usage but posts losses, blames low tariffs
Was it done by a mere mortal or by machine? My fear of AI reading our thinking and playing around with the thinking for the company’s benefit seem to have become reality! Or is it still the human?
That’s no AI. It’s Econet hiding the cheap stuff and giving you the expensive upfront. Also their USD bundles are on the expensive side( most of them). The zwl bundles are the opposite except for the data bundles.
True their Data in ZWL are expensive.
Its cheaper in UzsD
USD**
Interestingly, the Malawian government has gone quite a way with its rollout of free WiFi accessible from Schools, Public libraries, airports, markets, and other identified places. All Malawians or any person in Malawi is guaranteed 1gigabyte or 1000megabytes free data daily when they access the WiFi that has no password!
Hospitals included!
That has data collection written all over it
Check with weekend, they offer very cheap hourly $zwl bundles ranging from $zwl 2000 for 1gig
This is ridiculous. I wrote about this on LinkedIn. You’re right Leonard. It’s a profit making scheme that completely ignores user experience and customer satisfaction. But then again, the age old problem in Zimbabwe of either being a monopoly or being part of an oligopoly. As is clearly the case with econet. To add, their menus are not logical. No heuristics evaluation or usability studies were conducted. Why? Because its not about user experience — it’s about profit. Repulsing!
Zimbabwe & African tech news, smartphones
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