Ooredoo Kuwait, the first to introduce digital innovative services in Kuwait, recently concluded its Annual General Meeting on March 9, 2023, to wrap up a year of outstanding results that sent the brand to new heights. Ooredoo reported a consolidated revenue increase of 3% to KWD 620.3 million in 2022, compared to KWD 601.7 million in 2021, with a consolidated customer base totaling 24.7 million.
These results are evidence of the effective leadership and strategies in place that target customers, elevating their experiences through a digitally innovative network while providing them with exclusive products and services tailor-made to meet their daily demands and needs.
CEO of Ooredoo Kuwait, Mr. Abdulaziz Al-Babtain, commented on this year's results, stating, "2022 has been a year of successful upgrades and implementation of our strategic plan to take customer experiences to an unprecedented level. Our strategies revolved around our customers, their firsthand experience with the brand, better understanding their needs and demands. We elevated and digitally enhanced all aspects of our products, services, offers, and promotions to provide them with the best-in-market experience. This growth has been supported by the keenness and determination of everyone at Ooredoo Kuwait to ensure that we not only meet but exceed expectations."
He continues, "We took it upon ourselves to efficiently upgrade and enhance all aspects of our operations, services, and infrastructure. Our sole aim was to provide our customers with a unique experience with the Ooredoo brand, a seamless and uninterrupted network. We adopted and integrated innovative digital technologies into our infrastructure not only to gain a competitive edge in the market but also to ensure that our customers are satisfied and their needs are met."
Al-Babtain concluded his statement by saying, 'With the constant advancements and increasing demand for financial services on a global scale, Ooredoo Kuwait is proud to have been the first telecommunications company in Kuwait to announce and launch Apple Pay through our MyOoredoo App. Our recent partnership with My Rateb through Ooredoo Business marks the first step in introducing the concept of a 'mobile bank' to our customers. Ooredoo Kuwait is committed to remaining at the forefront of digital innovation, constantly introducing new technologies that cater to our customers' needs and adapt to their fast-paced, digital lifestyles.'"
A Year of Upgrade
Ooredoo Kuwait has upgraded its brand and tagline to reflect its commitment to enabling human progress and continual improvement. The new tagline, 'Upgrade Your World,' promises to keep customers and employees moving forward, whether in small steps or giant leaps. The company is enhancing every aspect of its operations and business to better serve its customers, providing tailor-fit solutions while rewarding them with a unique experience on a technologically innovative and digitized platform. Ooredoo's new identity reflects the same spirit and passion that the company is celebrated for, as well as its forward-thinking attitude."
'Upgrade Your World' empowers customers to make choices that suit them by providing options to enhance their experiences and enabling personal growth. For Ooredoo Kuwait, this means investing in networks to provide seamless connectivity regardless of location and maximizing the customer experience through its products and services. Ooredoo's advanced networks support the Internet of Things and data analytics through 5G technology.
Ooredoo's mobile apps provide customers with a fully digital experience, including mobile money apps that offer a range of new services, especially to unbanked communities.
To better serve its customers, the company is also investing in its employees, supporting young leaders and attracting, retaining, and developing the next generation of talent. Ooredoo aims to become the employer of choice in each of its markets by fostering a more agile, team-focused corporate culture.
Partners in Success
Ooredoo Business, the trusted technology partner for innovative business solutions, has transformed itself into a one-stop-shop for all business needs, keeping pace with the rapidly developing market and supporting individuals who are keen to succeed and make an impact with their products and services. Ooredoo Business understands the needs of these businesses and business owners, and for that competitive edge, Ooredoo Business launched ‘Shamel Complete’. Shamel Complete is the missing piece for all business owners' needs. Shamel consists of optimized solutions that empower businesses by providing them with services to manage their business in-house, automate daily tasks, and enjoy flexible payment options while staying connected to the team through the best network to ensure that business operations are never interrupted.
Another technological service launched and adopted by Ooredoo Business, in partnership with Ericsson, is the ‘IoT Accelerator Connect’, a solution that aims to simplify and ease the operations of enterprises, an advancement in the field of digital transformation. Difficult, complex, and time-consuming are synonymous terms when considering the major challenges of past IoT projects. However, the IoT Accelerator Connect is the leap forward in the digital ecosystem; with one click, enterprises are provided with plug-and-play access to cellular IoT connectivity. From an enterprise perspective, this service efficiently simplifies and saves costs for enterprises looking for a unified layer of packaged services while minimizing complexity. Devices can be connected at any time, including end-to-end device onboarding, with a cellular IoT-ready module instantly connecting the subscription to the customer's network of choice. In addition, the solution makes it easier to connect devices to public cloud endpoints.
Now, Ooredoo Business customers can seamlessly connect to multiple endpoints to access their data and better manage assets relevant to their business. Ooredoo Kuwait has also partnered with Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) to implement Ericsson Billing across its network. The billing system upgrade has enabled 5G evolution across Ooredoo Kuwait’s network and supported in developing competitive marketing strategies for a variety of 5G products.
Ooredoo Business, in partnership with Cisco, has also made efforts to shed light and conduct workshops to support the SMB segment. These interactive workshops allow business owners to learn about the latest trends and practices related to SMB solutions and how to benefit from them. These workshops are part of Ooredoo Business' efforts to assist small and medium enterprise customers in increasing their awareness and knowledge. This will contribute to achieving the company's goals and lead to building loyalty and trust from their customers.
Going Above & Beyond
Upgrades to products, offers, and especially Ooredoo's services and network ensured readiness to host the region's first-ever World Cup in Qatar, catering to the millions that attended.
Recently, the official Middle East & Africa Telecommunication Operator of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 released figures on the demand for its network and services during the matches in 5G-enabled stadiums, leading up to the end of the quarter-finals. This resulted in 699 TB of data, 9.8 million voice calls, and welcoming 1.3 million roaming guests. These impressive figures are a result of Ooredoo's relentless effort to upgrade its core by adding layers of resiliency and capacity, modernizing, and virtualizing the core network, building sophisticated and state-of-the-art Telco Cloud Datacenters, and conducting multiple network audits, simulations, and optimization rounds to ensure the delivery of the most resilient network.
In Kuwait, Ooredoo is at the forefront of introducing more digitally innovative services.
To share this upgrade, Ooredoo Kuwait is prioritizing serving and rewarding their customers for staying loyal to the brand. Customers come first for Ooredoo, as evidenced by their own World Cup competition, "Ooredoo Surprises," which enables customers to win tickets to attend the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
"Ooredoo Surprises" was designed as a means of recognizing and rewarding customers for their commitment and loyalty, as well as raising awareness of the Ooredoo brand, increasing customer engagement throughout the year, and encouraging others to join a world-class mobile network.
Ooredoo Kuwait was the first company in Kuwait to offer its customers a chance to attend the World Cup by providing them with official World Cup tickets through the "Ooredoo Surprises" campaign or by simply recharging or settling their bills through the "MyOoredoo" app. This made Ooredoo customers eligible to enter the draw and win.
With the World Cup Qatar 2022 drawing closer, Ooredoo Kuwait wanted its customers to experience the thrill and excitement of bringing the world-renowned tournament to the region by providing them with a complimentary 100MB of free-roaming internet. This offer was a part of Ooredoo's commitment to meeting and exceeding its customers' expectations and ensuring that their experiences are uninterrupted on a one-of-a-kind telecommunications network. The offer was valid from November 19th until the final match of the World Cup on December 19th, for all Ooredoo Kuwait customers who landed in Qatar during that time.
But that's not all – Ooredoo Business, the trusted technology partner for business solutions, decided to break the conventional understanding of business-to-business activities and launched the "Ooredoo Cup Football Tournament." Ooredoo Business provided the opportunity for its corporate clients from various industries, both public and private, to participate in a healthy and competitive set of football matches. Participants came from all sectors, including banking, retail, electronics, oil and gas, and more, to experience Ooredoo Business and the brand in a different light. The exciting tournament kicked off with guests attending the group matches draw at the Ooredoo Kuwait headquarters, experiencing the World Cup branded atmosphere around the building while anticipating who they would face in the group matches.
The tournament was launched with 16 teams representing the participants on October 16th, 2022, at Dasman Bilingual School's stadium, and ended on October 29th of the same month. It goes without saying that prizes were made available for the winners: the first-place winners of the tournament received Category 1 tickets to attend the World Cup, and the team landing in second place received Category 2 tickets. Attendees to these corporate matches had the chance to win with Ooredoo Business through a draw at the end of the matches, which was also a part of rewarding and gifting everyone who interacted with the brand.
Everyone was a winner with Ooredoo Business, as awards were given to the best players, the most valuable player, best goalkeeper, and top scorer at the closing ceremony, which also took place at the Ooredoo Kuwait headquarters. Mr. Abdulaziz Al-Babtain, Chief Executive Officer of Ooredoo Kuwait, attended to greet and reward the winners.
The football fever was at an all-time high, with the demand for tickets to attend the World Cup Qatar 2022 skyrocketing, and Ooredoo made sure to answer the call. As part of its responsibility towards the community and to provide everyone with a chance to experience such an event, Ooredoo Kuwait sponsored GUST’s Management Club FIFA-themed event, spreading the love for football and holding a raffle draw to hand out World Cup tickets to the students on that day, including electronic accessories as gifts.
Simultaneously, Ooredoo Kuwait went ahead and prepared their own FIFA-branded and themed corner at Al-Hamra Mall in Kuwait City, giving customers the chance to pick and choose the matches they’d like to attend while benefiting from the exclusive and tailor-made offers, services, and promotions on all that Ooredoo has to give.
The curtains closed on the region’s most spectacular event, an event to be remembered as the FIFA World Cup for the first time ever came to the Middle East and labeled as the "FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022," with Ooredoo at the forefront, upgrading and enhancing the infrastructure to accommodate the millions of attendees. With advancing digital services and network ongoing, catering to existing customers and providing them with exclusive offers and opportunities was the responsibility of Ooredoo Kuwait. At Ooredoo Kuwait, strategies and upgrades will always have the customers in mind; to better serve and provide an unrivaled experience with an upgrading brand.
Keenness to Elevate Customer Experiences
Ooredoo Kuwait has been on a constant and consistent pursuit of upgrading. As such, the company was eager to obtain an efficient Omni/Multi-channel support solution for its interaction channels, integrating it within the Ooredoo IT Landscape. Valuing people as the main asset within the organization, Ooredoo Kuwait has implemented a unique training and engagement program for its interaction center teams through the "Premium Call Boot-Camp" initiative, a year-long training program tailored to invest in the competencies of their employees, ranking top performers, and aiding others to progress in their advancements towards excelling within their teams.
On its way towards digitization, Ooredoo Kuwait has set forth a strategy of going digital through powerful and efficient digital communication channels. They aim to advance their digital infrastructure to provide effective and integrated services on all social media channels, ensuring all customer inquiries and satisfaction are met. These endeavors to upgrade and update the concepts of customer experience have been recognized by 'The Future Enterprise Awards' for their exceptional accomplishments in the Contact Center Infrastructure Modernization Program. This award is a tangible manifestation of Ooredoo's strategies and adopted demeanor to better serve their customers, provide exclusive offers and competitively effective promotions, all while advancing its digital infrastructure to give customers a unique experience. They ensure that their loyal customers will be rewarded in ways that competitors cannot compare.
This tremendous successful leap is the result of harnessing future-proof solutions that add unique value to our customers' lives. We provide effective and integrated services on all social media channels, capture customer feedback seamlessly, and ensure all customer queries and satisfaction are met. Personalization and customization are also applied when contacting customers, while ensuring swift and efficient responses. We enrich the customer experience with personalized treatments to meet different customer preferences and simultaneously understand real customer needs by processing sentiment analysis for 100% of interactions. We have also introduced chat-bot capabilities to answer customer inquiries and fulfill their requests swiftly.
With an abundance of services and promotions, transparency and consistency become a must. Ooredoo representatives from Customer Care who interact and deal with customers have been empowered with a single source of truth to address customer inquiries consistently and truthfully.
Ooredoo Kuwait is on a constant and consistent pursuit of upgrading. Upgrading the lives of its customers is at the forefront, ensuring that all their needs and expectations from the brand are met and exceeded. While their demands are understood and catered to, Ooredoo Kuwait is working around the clock to update its digital infrastructure and network to ensure seamless and efficient operations. It is also worth mentioning that the company has taken upon itself to provide the latest FinTech solutions while working together with governmental sectors of Kuwait to support and aid in transforming the country to one that is digitally advanced, in consistency with the 'New Kuwait' 2035 vision.
Growth in 5G Footprint
Continuous efforts have been made by Ooredoo Kuwait, with great hard work by the Technology and Network teams, which were directly supported by senior management. Ooredoo Kuwait managed to roll out more than 2400 5G towers across Kuwait, becoming the first operator in the region to deploy 5G on low band spectrum. This resulted in ensuring broader and more comprehensive 5G coverage across all residential areas of Kuwait, chalets, farms, and islands. Furthermore, Ooredoo Kuwait continued extending fiber to most of its sites to ensure customers get a better experience, improved performance, and lower operating costs.
Strong & Positive Outlook for 2023
The slogan 'Upgrade Your World' has been implemented by both Ooredoo Kuwait's management and its employees. The results and accomplishments have been outstanding for the brand and have elevated them to new heights. This all comes as a result of the dedicated efforts of everyone behind the Ooredoo brand in ensuring that all its customer base is satisfied while also ensuring that their interactions are always positive and upgraded from everyone else's. Ooredoo Kuwait takes those strategies along with them and sets its sights on a more digitally innovative year ahead.