Stevie-winner Vodafone Oman was established through a strategic partnership between the Oman Future Telecommunication Company and Vodafone Group, one of the largest providers of mobile, fixed, broadband, and digital TV services.
Vodafone Group is a British multinational telecommunications company. With its registered office and global headquarters in Newbury, Berkshire, England, it predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
In 2021, the company obtained a Class I License to establish and operate public mobile telecommunications services in the Sultanate of Oman, becoming the third telecom operator in the local market.
My Vodafone in Oman
The My Vodafone app has been downloaded by over 2 million people across Oman. Through the app, customers can onboard themselves virtually in less than two minutes, including plan and number selection, identity verification using advanced AI and facial recognition capabilities, payment, and eSIM (and physical SIM delivery or pick-up). They also enable customers to replace their SIMs remotely, providing SIM-to-eSIM replacement within seconds.
Vodafone offers a monthly subscription model wherein customers can enable the auto-payment feature so that the user's account is charged on the plan’s renewal date without any human intervention to ensure uninterrupted service. Customers are given the ability to set an amount to be withdrawn automatically once a minimum threshold is reached.
They have also developed a feature called "Everything Is Okay (EIO)" which allows customers to check their account against any technical, financial, and network issues. Customers are presented with an issue and a way to resolve it, covering payments and renewals, account status, network, and device and SIM management.
Existing customers can digitally add up to 10 numbers under their main account in less than a minute using My Vodafone, including number selection, plan selection, payment, and SIM activation.
App Improvement & Service Expansion
To localize an international brand, Vodafone had to bring on a team of agencies that brought local insights with technological prowess.
The Vodafone Academy was an integrative program between the different agencies and Vodafone Oman that aims to build a circular talent economy that nurtures young Omani talents. The program was centered around three key pillars of marketing: media, content/creative, and social media. The program spanned six months and ultimately awarded two graduates full-time placements at the end of the program.
With fewer resources and less time in the market, it leveraged its agencies’ local and international expertise to develop a team that deepened its relationship with not only its partners but also the wider Omani community.
The app has enabled Vodafone to collect a huge amount of data points, which helps them make constant improvements to both the services and customer service.
Vodafone’s AI-enabled networks automatically detect and even pre-empt problems and threats via data analysis and create tickets for dispatch to the network operation center, saving significant time for affected customers and enhancing their experience.
Telecom operators have previously focused on selling services, i.e., voice and data. The My Vodafone app aims to offer more than that, providing other services in line with the Government of Oman’s digital ambitions: parking booking within Muscat and Nizwa in collaboration with local partners, with notifications when a reservation is about to expire; and high school grades in collaboration the Sultanate’s Ministry of Education, when students enter their seat ID to receive their grade automatically.
Entering Oman as a digital-first service, Vodafone said the speed of transformation that the pandemic brought to the world was an enabler for a winning launch and a solid foundation for the brand.
Vodafone Oman won a Bronze Stevie and three Gold Stevie Awards for Innovation in Cross-Media Marketing, Most Innovative Startup of the Year in Services, Most Innovative Advertising or Marketing Team of the Year, and for Innovation in Brand Development in the 2023 Middle East & North Africa Stevie® Awards.
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