Safaricom’s platinum club targets high spenders

Telecom firm Safaricom has launched a shop providing specialised services for its high spenders joining a trend that has gained ground in the financial services sector.
On Thursday evening, the company launched its first Platinum Club Shop at the Sarit Centre shopping mall in Nairobi which is an exclusive club for the top tier of corporate and individual subscribers.

In a telephone interview on Friday, Safaricom chief executive Bob Collymore said the threshold for customers to be invited to join the platinum club is a monthly bill of at least Sh15,000.

He said this is an expansion of an already existing service in which Platinum Club members already get specialised treatment when accessing customer care services with Safaricom.

“We are simply expanding the services we already had available. We want to provide personalised customer care for this segment of the market,” said Mr Collymore.

At the Platinum Club shop, subscribers will be able access free wi-fi and dedicated customer service executives. Platinum card holders currently access speedy services at the other Safaricom shops across the country. They also have the opportunity to pre-book any devices sold in Safaricom shops before they are launched in the market.

Safaricom’s rise to the top of Kenya’s telecommunication market has been grounded in innovations targeted at low-end users.

It pioneered per-second billing in the local market and has introduced pre-paid scratch cards of as low as Sh10 thereby going after the mass-market.  Even the firm’s mobile money system, M-Pesa, was targeted at the unbanked.

The mobile operator is following a trend seen elsewhere in Kenya, especially in banking. Earlier this year, Equity Bank opened its 10th supreme banking branch in Nairobi Central Business District.