The reputation of telecommunications services provider Nashua Mobile has gone south over the past few years, but now the company - part of JSE-listed Reunert - has started to pick up the pieces in an attempt to win over customers.
This is according to Mark Taylor, who returned to Nashua Mobile to take the reins as CEO of the company again in October last year, following a four-year tenure with SA's largest network operator, Vodacom, as managing executive of terminals.
Taylor says his time at Vodacom showed him, among other things, how the Nashua Mobile business could scale. This will take a lot of hard work, investment of time and renewed thinking, he says, but over the past few months various strides have been made to overhaul the company.
The service provider's customer base - measured by the number of SIM cards it issues - currently sits at just under a million. Taylor says, within the next 24 months, he aims to add another 300 000 to 400 000 customers to this. "We want to double sales, which may sound ambitious, but it is doable."
Taylor says Nashua Mobile's sales have seen a 40% increase over the past six months. "This is great, but still not where we want to be."
In the latest move, Nashua Mobile has added French telecoms group Orange to its portfolio of partners. The two teamed up - in a retail only capacity for now - earlier this month, part of what Taylor says could represent the first of a number of similar partnerships.
Repair and renovation
Taylor says he realised upon his return to the company that there were a number of issues that needed to be turned around if Nashua Mobile was to keep up in the highly competitive local telecoms industry.
Apart from the company having lost the faith and loyalty of customers due to a lack of customer service, he says the IT systems had not been upgraded in 20 years. Having set to work on replacing Nashua's mainframe and servers shortly after his return, Taylor says this process has been completed - and will see the replacement of legacy infrastructure following it shortly, as Nashua's next major IT investment. "At the moment we are busy with the local area network and wide area networks."
Other significant steps Nashua Mobile has taken to fine-tune business operations and ultimately restore customer relations, he says, include going "completely paperless" - and the rollout of new style stores with self-service and technology-based services throughout SA.
Nashua Mobile has 150 retail stores countrywide. The new concept stores, says Taylor, will continue to be rolled out - some as new stores and some upgraded - over the next year. "We aim to grow our retail distribution and retail service, and take services to the home."
In line with this, Nashua launched a "Smart Squad" and a green concept "Smart Trade" at the beginning of the month. "We now have 12 'smart' vehicles on the road that are there to assist with service delivery, and we have a system whereby customers can bring in their old devices and get more value out of them, as part of a sustainability exercise."
Taylor says these moves have been made over the past six months in an attempt to reposition Nashua Mobile in the eyes of its customers. The company has also invested heavily in training and the building up of staff morale, he says.
"As the CEO, I have an obligation to see what is happening on the ground and deal directly with staff and customers too. Nashua's executive team has the same obligations and I encourage executives to take time on weekends and actually visit our stores to see what is going on there."
Customer care
At the end of the day, says Taylor, the world was moving on - but Nashua Mobile was not moving with it. "We were not investing in our people and services. Global and local trends were moving on but we weren't part of these."
He says it is now up to Nashua Mobile to follow through on the basics of customer service, starting with staff training. "We also need to build accountability and have instituted key performance indicators twice a year."
Customer service, he says, has emerged as the most important competitive weapon in the telecoms industry, and Nashua Mobile - once in danger of losing its grip on this - needs to ensure it is more customer-focused than ever before.
Regarding the recent partnership with Orange, Taylor says the rumour mill has been set turning that Nashua Mobile may look into launching as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), but "we can put those [rumours] to bed".
"If Orange decides they want to become an MVNO then we could look at being their billing partner, but as far as Nashua venturing into that kind of service goes, we are definitely not looking into it at this stage. We value our partnership with Vodacom, MTN and Cell C, and do not want to compete or damage any relationships we have built up."
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