TABLE OF CONTENT

QUESTION 1

Vodafones Marketing strategy ................................................................2-6

QUESTION 2

Five touchpoints and social trends that Vodafone may have integrated
into their strategy..................................................................7-8

QUESTION 3

Benefits of using internet......................................................................9-10

REFERENCES.............................................................................................11

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Question 1
Marketing strategy
Strategy 1
Customer
We seek to differentiate ourselves from our competitors by offering customers the best
network, best value and best service.
To measure the quality of the customer experience, we use the net promoter score (NPS)
based on one question: "Would you recommend Vodacom to your family, friends and
colleagues?"
We use Brand Consideration to understand and assess our brand perception amongst
brand users and brand non-users: "Would you consider us based on your perception?"
We use market share to track our position in the market.
We have also continued our efforts in lowering the prices of smart data devices, aided by
the purchasing power we enjoy through the Vodafone Procurement Company, but are
expecting this to be constrained by higher import costs due to poor exchange rates.
Our performance
Blended price per minute reduced 16.9% to 54 cents in South Africa.
Prepaid price per minute reduced 17.8% to 37 cents in South Africa.
Effective price per MB reduced by 13.6% in South Africa and 28.6% in International.
Data traffic grew 46.8% in South Africa and 73.1% in International.
In South Africa: 85.1% of contract customers are on integrated tariffs and contract churn
reduced from 9.2% to 8.5%.
Best service
Our ambition is to position Vodacom as Africa’s best telecommunications company at
delivering unmatched customer experience at every point that a customer engages with our
brand. To achieve this, in May 2015, we launched an ambitious three-year programme
under the Vodafone global CARE initiative that focuses on four areas aimed at maximising
the customer experience:
Connectivity – We will be guaranteeing network satisfaction in terms of speed, reliability
and coverage, and are taking a more proactive approach in checking coverage and call
quality.
Always in control – We aim to ensure that customers have full control of their spend and do
not have any surprises from bill shock. Using the My Vodacom App, customers can easily

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view balances, buy bundles and manage their account with Vodacom, free of charge. We
have extended our international roaming product.
Rewarding loyalty – We are rewarding long-term customers for being part of the Vodacom
family, and are refreshing our existing postpaid and prepaid loyalty programmes.
Easy access – We are maximising the efficiency and availability of customer support, digitizing
our customer experience, introducing voice biometrics in the call centres, increasing
functionality and improving processes. We launched our first Business in Retail service in store
with a dedicated enterprise desk and by year end ten stores had implemented the integrated
Business in Retail model. Roaming customers can call our call centre 24/7 at no char
Strategy 2
Growth
Globally, we are seeing a rapid technology migration to higher-speed mobile broadband
networks and the increasing adoption of smartphone and other connected devices as part of
a move to the ‘Internet of Things’. Collectively, this is driving substantial growth in data traffic.
Mobile is at the heart of the new digital ecosystem; GSMA 2015 has predicted that in the
period to 2020, mobile’s contribution to global GDP will grow at a faster rate than the rest of
the global economy. This brings significant opportunities, as well as some important
challenges, associated in particular with the rapidly changing nature of competition in this
area. To build resilient revenue streams and secure future growth opportunities, we are
investing in diversifying our business across a range of focus areas.
Our strategy for growing data revenue is predicated on four pillars: having the best network;
getting a device fit for customer specific needs into every customer’s hands; offering
affordable value across all segments; and providing more reason to consume data through
the provision of content. We have seen encouraging performance this year in each of these
areas:

 Network: We have increased our addressable market by extending our 3G and LTE/4G
network coverage in South Africa, 2G and 3G coverage in our International operations
and LTE/4G in Lesotho.

 Devices: We have continued to drive the uptake of smart devices through the provision
of financing and increasing the availability of lower cost devices. This has been assisted
by our increased purchasing power through our relationship with Vodafone and the
Vodafone Procurement Company, but constrained by exchange rate challenges. This
year, we introduced a tablet at a very low price point (R89 on a 24-month contract or R1
099 on prepaid), bundled with free educational content. In South Africa, the number of
smart devices on our network increased by 22.8% to 14.2 million, with tablets increasing
56.3% to 1.7 million. The Vodacom branded smart devices sold accounted for 25.7% of
total device sales.

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 Value: Our bundle strategy seeks to offer value to all customer segments and fulfil
various needs. Our bundle validity period varies between hourly, daily, weekly and
monthly validity, while bundle sizes are available in bite size portions such as 10MB, with
super bundles of 20GB for our more data hungry customers. We continue to drive
customers to this more responsible worry-free payment method. As a result, the
effective price per MB reduced by 13.6% in South Africa, contributing to the 85.9%
increase in total bundle sales. The effective price per MB reduced by 28.6% in
International. Average monthly data used by customers on smart devices has continued
to increase, with the resulting benefits for ARPU highlighting the value in encouraging
customer migration to 3G and LTE/4G enabled devices.

 Content: One of the areas we believe we need to improve on is content. This ensures that
we maximise value for shareholders on the data that we carry across our network, and
that we do not just deliver as a conduit for other services. We have made some initial
progress in bringing content to consumers – such as music streaming, gaming, TV and
video, news and sport – through various distribution channels.
Strategy 3
Operations
Across our operations depressed currencies and higher interest rates are putting upward
pressure on our costs, as we expand our network to support growing data and voice traffic.
Given this operating context, there is a strong drive to find innovative ways to reduce our
costs and maximise efficiencies.

 Multi-year initiatives
In addition to driving revenue growth, we continue to place a strong focus on enhancing
operational efficiencies and reducing costs. This has become particularly important given the
tough market conditions that are leading to reduced consumer spend and increased input
costs .As with other companies in the sector, key challenges to costs include inflationary
pressure, the operational costs to service incremental sites, higher energy costs, and foreign
currency denominated expenses impacted by weakening exchange rates.

 Process simplification
We continually look at how we can simplify and speed up the way we do things to benefit our
customers while also reducing costs. We track and measure the targets that we have put in
place, how long it takes to answer a call, to repair a phone or deliver one. By introducing and
improving our various self-care channels such as the My Vodacom App, web chat and USSD,
we managed to empower customers to help themselves while also reducing overall call
volumes. We continue to improve on our call centre effectiveness by fixing the root cause of
problems and understanding customer problems better. As a result, service in our online

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channels has grown to over 1 million users per month, at the same time reducing calls to call
centres by 14%. Our next target is to complete a customer upgrade in ten minutes.

 Structural savings
As we accelerate our network investment to improve coverage and quality across our
operations, we constantly explore opportunities to do this smarter and more efficiently to
ensure that we retain our network advantage at the best returns with reduced environmental
impacts and enhanced social delivery. We have increased the rollout of our low cost base
stations that can be deployed in three days at a cost of only around $50 000. The sites are
connected through satellite technology and powered by solar energy. We have completed
the installation at all our operations of our single RAN technology that enables the
combination of 2G, 3G and LTE/4G technologies into the same radio equipment. This has had
a number of cost benefits, including reduced on-site floor space requirements, which reduces
our site rentals.
Strategy 3

 People
Success at Vodacom is defined by our people. To deliver on our strategic priorities, we need
technical skills to deliver our best network, product development and financial expertise to
deliver best value, and great customer-facing employees to deliver best service. We are
focused on attracting, retaining and developing the best talent and skills, on driving diversity
across the workplace, and on providing a motivating and inclusive workplace.

 Measuring performance
We make it a priority to listen to our employees to understand their views. Our annual
independently conducted People Survey allows employees to express their views about the
organisation and our managers. It is used to check if we are creating the right environment
for our people to excel and grow, and to identify areas for improvement. Our results are
compared to other Vodafone Group companies and with a high-performing peer group.
This year, the overall workforce participation rate (across all operations) was 86%. Our
Engagement Score remained strong at 76 points out of 100; we are well on track to achieve
our goal of an overall Engagement Score of 80 by the end of the 2018 financial year.
Strategy 4
Reputation
Maintaining a positive reputation is key to managing the critical relationships that we depend
on to create value (click here). Building on the substantial societal benefits of our core
business activities through focused partnerships and investments form an important part of
maintaining our strong reputation.

 Maintaining reputation leadership

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We use our annual Reputation Survey conducted with key internal and external
stakeholders to track our progress and benchmark our reputation against our competitors
and other leading brands. An independent company conducts this survey on our behalf. This
year, we have again maintained the number one leadership position relative to our
competitors in the telecoms sector in South AfricaDuring the year, we won various external
awards, reflecting an external perspective on our r

 Reputation leadership
 Vodacom was voted Top Brand in the consumer and business category by Sunday Times,
and Vodacom Business received the coveted Grand Prix Award for the overall favourite
brand in business.
 South African youth once again voted Vodacom as the Coolest Brand in the Generation.
 Our MyVodacom App won the Best Mobile App in the Digital Impact Awards.
 Vodacom has been recognised as the Top Employer in the telecoms industry and in the
top ten across all industries by the Top Employers Institute
 Vodacom was awarded first position in the Mail & Guardian Top Companies Reputation
Index in the Telecoms industry and we are in the top three across all industries in South
Africa.

(http://marketingstrategy.com)

Question 2

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Five touchpoints and social trends that Vodafone may have integrated
into their strategy
Customer touchpoints are where customers interact with your brand, product, service, etc.
Developing an understanding of each touchpoint means that you can design better user and
better customer experiences. This understanding can also be used to enhance user and
customer journey mapping exercises. Improving touchpoints within your control can also help
improve those that lay outside of your control too.
It is fair to say that some interactions are outside of your control, such as online reviews but
that doesn’t mean that you cannot influence these interactions.
Online reputation management tracking can help you respond to negative reviews and
comments effectively. They can also help you build a barometer of success on other actions
to improve touchpoints – if your touchpoints worked perfectly each and every time, it would
be unlikely that your customers would leave poor reviews online in the first place. Improving
the touchpoints you can control will usually improve the ones you cannot too.
Appropriate (e.g. that both the context of the interaction and the cultural tone of the
interaction meet the needs of the customer or user)
Relevant (e.g. that the function performed by the interaction meets the utility requirements
of the customer or user)
Meaningful (e.g. that the interaction was perceived as important or purposeful by the
customer or user)
Endearing (e.g. that the interaction created some form of bond with the user or customer for
example through desirability, creating delight or a playful tone)
Vodacom has invested in its customer care by deploying software provided by Genesys
Telecommunications Laboratories. The company says it is one of the first to deploy Genesys
Social Engagement, a platform that automates and integrates social media interactions with
customers throughout its contact centre and customer service operations.
“For the first time, Vodacom customer service agents will be able to seamlessly switch from
social media interactions to another mode of contact, without losing context or data.”
The Genesys Customer Interaction Management (CIM) platform allows Vodacom to
moderate the more than 16 million calls to its customer call centre per month. Blended e-
services agents within the contact centres handle non-voice interactions such as chat, SMS,
Web callback and e-mail.

Vodacom has by far the largest social media following compared to its main counterparts
MTN, Cell C, 8ta and Virgin Mobile. On the two primary social platforms, Twitter and

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Facebook, the amount of followers and “likes” the operator has in tow is currently three- to
15-fold more than SA's second cellphone operator.
A Vodacom spokesperson notes the discrepancy in active social media followers is one of
the things that often gives the impression that the operator's customer service is not up to
scratch. “Because we have so many people commenting and posting, positive and negative
feedback, it appears that we have the most gripes. But this is just because the volumes of
commentary are so much higher.”
Vodacom says, in light of its growing number of postings via social media that require a
response from the Vodacom customer support team, it is determined to more effectively
handle the virtual platform. To date, Vodacom had been using a manual approach to
handling social media queries.
Genesys Social Engagement, which supports Twitter and Facebook, facilitates Vodacom
agents by allowing them to use existing routing, reporting and agent desktop technologies
to handle social media as part of a cross-channel customer service strategy, built around
driving customer conversations.
Integrated interaction
Eben Dreyer, solution development manager at Vodacom, says the company's goal is to be
responsive, and social media is just another channel for customers to get in touch with it. “A
posting on a Web site may be only part of an interaction a customer may be having with us,
so it is important that we have a highly integrated approach that allows us to uniformly
handle all interactions.”
Genesys CEO Paul Segre says social media has changed interaction in a fundamental way, to
the extent that it is “now transforming customer service”. He says this is where the value of
delivering cross-channel customer conversation lies, an advantage that Vodacom has
“recognised”.
If we want to improve interactions with our customers the key starting point is to understand
what those interactions are and where they take place. Without that understanding it would
be impossible to measure any improvements or indeed to see if changes made to those
interactions were having a detrimenta
(http://adaptivepath.org/ideas/un-sucking-the-touchpoint/)

Question 3
Benefits of using internet

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Greater convenience
Convenience of online shopping, by allowing consumers to shop at home, is one of the
biggest advantages of electronic shopping (Coughlan, Anderson, Stern, and El-Ansary,
2001). The Internet makes shopping more convenient as consumers can search and
compare products and prices and place an order without visiting stores. People who
prefer shopping online value the convenience of shopping anytime of the day and that
it takes less time to complete the purchase than when shopping offline. In a study of
business to business companies, it was found that most purchasing managers buy online
because it lowers transaction and search costs and because it automates purchasing
information for tracking inventory
(Baker, Marn, and Zawada, 2001).
More time consuming.
One disadvantage of e-commerce is the time it takes for delivery of the merchandise
after the order is placed. This is not a problem for downloadable digital goods such
as stock trading, music, online banking, movies, videos, and software. But non-digital
goods such as books and DVDs must be shipped after the customer places an order
and it can take a substantial amount of time for delivery of the merchandise. Consumer
demands for faster delivery is putting pressure on e-tailers to increase the speed of
product delivery and has enhanced the importance of quick delivery companies such as
UPS, Federal Express, and others. To alleviate this problem, some electronic retailers
offer various shipping choices ranging from overnight express or Canada Post Xpresspost
to slower shipping methods such as U.S. ground mail Canada Post's Expedited Parcel
service
(August), 292-308.)
Different cost structure
. The Internet is a channel of distribution with a different cost structure (Lal and
Sarvary, 1999). The Internet does not necessarily imply lower distribution costs for
customers because of costs associated with returned merchandise, difficulty in returning
products, concerns about slow product delivery, and high shipping and handling fees. A
report by Retail Forward discovered that 56% of Internet buyers decided to make a
purchase because they were offered free shipping. In addition, 70% of Internet shoppers
stated that they would shop online more if they didn’t have to pay shipping and
handling charges Recently Amazon.ca and Chapetrs.ca reduced the minimum purchase
required for free shipping to $39. Buy.com and J&R offer free shipping on selected items.
( Internet Retailer, 2002)

Electronic data interchange.

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 The Internet offers firms the ability to use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems,
which are used to integrate the computers of different companies. EDI consists of
various electronic technologies that enable companies to share data on shipments,
orders, and sales . It commonly involves a computer platform that is proprietary to the
buyer making it necessary for suppliers serving many retailers to use a different
computer for connecting with each customer.
(Coughlan, Anderson, Stern, and El-Ansary, 2001).
There are many great features and opportunities of using Internet marketing. One of these is
around-the-clock access. Although your retail location may not be open 24/7, the Internet is
always open! Shoppers can browse your site at any hour of the day, and as a marketer, you
can digitally 'touch' consumers at all hours through email, online, and social media marketing.
Another benefit is greater exposure. When you market online, you are literally introducing
your business to thousands of people who may never have heard of your brand due to
geography or accessibility. With Internet marketing, you could be based in Ohio and reach
consumers on the other side of the world with your brand's message and access to
whatever you offer.
Internet marketing is also low cost. Doing business and marketing-related tasks online is a
relatively low-cost, high-reward way to promote your business, products, or services. Ads
such as sponsored posts on social media or pay-per-click ads inside of search engine results
can be had for pennies on the dollars. They can also be targeted more specifically including
by gender, location, or age, compared to more expensive, broad-reaching, traditional
marketing efforts.
Another benefit is that Internet marketing provides a social outlet. Besides the vast array of
social media channels from which you can promote your business, you're also better
positioned to interact more closely with your customers. You can make subscribers to your
email marketing messages, place online ads in targeted locations, and fill a need with content
such as blog posts and your website. Social media, on the other hand, is a great place to
interact with customers, listen to their concerns, and address them head-on.(Www.
Smallbusiness.//Chron.com)

REFERENCES

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Suri, Rajneesh, Mary Long, and Kent B. Monroe (2001). The Impact of the Internet and
Consumer Motivation on the Evaluation of Prices, Journal of Business Research

Zettelmeyer, Florian (2000). Pricing and Communications Strategy When Firms Compete
on Multiple Channels, Journal of Marketing Research,

http://adaptivepath.org/ideas/un-sucking-the-touchpoint/

http://marketingstrategy.com

Www. Smallbusiness.//Chron.com

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