Cell C has announced that it is fully compliant with the End-User and Subscriber Service Charter regulations.
“We are proud to have completed these complex and costly developments in a manner that is beneficial to our customers and in record time and well before the deadline,” says Cell C CEO, Jose Dos Santos.
The new regulations that will come into effect at the end of February 2019 require all operators to provide certain parameters to services like data transfer, data rollover, out-of-bundle data charges and usage notifications. Cell C has since prioritised the implementation of these requirements to ensure the company is compliant and customers benefit from new and enhanced services.
Last month, Cell C unveiled its Spend Control service, allowing Cell C customers to completely control their out-of-bundle spend. This service goes above and beyond the data requirement in the regulations; with Cell C offering granular out-of-bundle spend control across voice, data and SMS for all its customers through *147# USSD, Cell C App and online portal channels.
At the same time the company also introduced its enhanced notifications services, offering customers clear and timely notices as bundles are being depleted. Customers now receive notifications at 20%, 50%, 80% and 100% depletion intervals. More than that, customers can also track bundle depletion and balances instantaneously through the Cell C App.
Cell C will make the final two services under the requirements available to customers this weekend. The first is Data Transfer, which allows Cell C customers to send data to other Cell C users. Cell C has always had the option of transferring data to friends and family if customers had purchased a data bundle, however, it has now enhanced and extended this service to allow for the transfer of additional types of data bundles that our customers may have.
The service applies to inclusive data on bundles, from daily data bundles, through to our 365-day bundles and the inclusive data on contracts. Promotional or free data, black data and bundles dedicated to social services are excluded. Customers will be able to transfer three times per day up to 1GB per month for free.
“Customers will not pay a cent to transfer their data to friends or family on the Cell C network. While customers have always had the option on the Cell C network to transfer data, we know they will be pleased with how this service has been enhanced,” says Dos Santos.
Additionally, Cell C’s enhanced version of data rollover will be made available this weekend. Cell C already has validity periods of up to 365 days on some of its data offerings and extended validity periods of up to 2 calendar months on its inclusive contract data. In addition, customers have been able to extend their remaining data bundle balance by simply purchasing another data bundle before the current bundle expires. Unused data on recurring bundles automatically rolled over while the bundle is active.
Cell C is now enhancing this service to allow additional data rollover. The enhanced service allows customers to extend the validity date of their data, ensuring any remaining balance is not forfeited. The service allows customers to extend their data by one, seven or 30-days at a time. Customers with 100MB or less remaining will be able to rollover their data completely free for an additional one and seven days, while customers that rollover between 101MB and 500MB of data can rollover free for an additional day. For larger bundle balances and extensions customers will pay a nominal fee to roll over the data. As with data transfer the rollover service applies to data bundles and inclusive data as part of customers’ contracts.
The two new services will be available on USSD from this weekend, and will be extended to the app and web portal early in the New Year.
“Cell C has pulled out all the stops to ensure that we are not only compliant with the regulations, but that customers will benefit from these changes. We are proud to be able to have done it all well before the deadline,” says Dos Santos.
The company has already embarked on an educational drive that will run until the end of February to ensure customers are informed of the new benefits, specifically the required opt-in for out-of-bundle data charges to ensure they are not left without services once they have depleted in-bundle value.