Companies
Safaricom starts reverse calling
Tuesday, June 18, 2019 20:55
By BONFACE OTIENO
About 31 million Safaricom #ticker:SCOM customers are now able to make reverse calls in a move allowing subscribers to foot bills for calls made by loved ones.
The service enables a caller to transfer the cost of a call to the receiver by adding ‘#’ before the number they are dialling.
For instance, to transfer the cost of the call to 0722000000, a customer is required to dial #0722000000.
“This innovation is in line with this commitment and has been tailored to mirror the relationships between our customers with a goal of empowering them to always remain connected with their loved ones,” Safaricom’s chief customer officer Sylvia Mulinge said in a statement yesterday.
Ms Mulinge said that the reverse call feature works in such a way that a customer receiving a reverse call request will see the caller’s details appear on the screen as normal, but once they pick the call, they will receive a voice prompt asking them to key in “1” to accept the reverse call.
The telco already has a Please Call Me feature that allows subscribers to request someone to call them and, therefore, pay for the communication.
The reverse call, she said, will be charged at the normal rates. It is only available for Safaricom-Safaricom calls.
Safaricom reported a 14.7 percent increase in net profit to Sh63.4 billion for the year ended March 2019.
