1 Introduction:

Any business aims to satisfy its customers. Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) is an important field of study to know the customers
attitude and feed them back as per their desire and demand. Banglalink is
one of the leading telecom operators in Bangladesh which comes out
successful within a very short period of time. And the secret behind the
success is a very sound relationship with existing and potential customers.

2.a Brief Company Profile

• A venture of Orascom Telecom Ltd (Egypt)

• 2nd largest Mobile phone operator
• Inception in 2005
• 15+ million subscriber
• 700 customer care points
• Coverage in 64 districts
• 1900 km optical fiber network
• Market challenger

2.b What makes Banglalink Different:

The company offers a very cordial and sincere team of Customer Care. It
promises to always give the best support. The campaign “Kotha Dilam”
applies the indifference theory of Consumer Behavior. It always tries to
avoid its consumers to become indifferent of the product.

Shared Value
Banglalink aims to understand peoples' needs best and develop appropriate
communication services to improve peoples' life and make it simple. All its
work is aimed towards meeting our vision. All members of the Banglalink
family are highly passionate individuals, fully committed to achieving the
vision that they have set themselves. The customers' needs matter most to
them- making their life simple and improving it is all they want.

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To ensure their vision is achieved, they have set a few values. They want to
be:
Straight Forward
Reliable
Innovative
Passionate

All the Banglalink family members have one thing in common- a passion to
serve. They want to go that extra mile, so that the customers can have the
best possible service.

Making a difference
The biggest barrier today for people is the cost of handsets. We will strive to
lower the total cost of owning a mobile. We are here to help make a
difference in people's lives by providing affordable and reliable connectivity
solutions. We will strive to connect people and link their lives by listening to
them and by understanding their needs. We are here to help you speak your
language.

The Vision
"Banglalink understands people's needs best and will create and deliver
appropriate communication services to improve people's life.” A glimpse of
the campaign is given below:

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3 Theoritical Frameworks of CRM Activities performed by Banglalink

3.a Definition of CRM

CRM is “the development and maintenance of mutually beneficial, long-term

relationships with strategically significant customers”

(Buttle, 2000)

CRM is “an IT enhanced value process, which identifies, develops, integrates

and focuses the various competencies of the firm to the ‘voice’ of the
customer in order to deliver long-term superior customer value, at a profit to
well identified existing and potential customers”.

(Plakoyiannaki and Tzokas, 2001)

3.b Stages in the development of Customer Relationship

1) The Pre-relationship Stage: The event that triggers a buyer to

seek a new business partner.

2) The Early Stage: Experience is accumulated between the buyer

and seller although a great degree of uncertainty and distance exists.

3) The Development Stage: Increased levels of transactions

lead to a higher degree of commitment and the distance is reduced to a
social exchange.

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 4) The Long-term Stage: Characterised by the companies’ mutual
importance to each other.

5) The Final Stage: The interaction between the companies becomes

institutionalized

4 The CRM Activities performed by Banglalink

As mentioned earlier, Banglalink is very caring about its customers. The two
major categories of Banglalink customers are:

1. Pre-paid Subscribers

2. Post-paid Subscribers

In caring the Customers Banglalink carefully maintains its relationships at

several stages. CRM activities performed by Banglalink CCD (Customer Care
Division) are described in the context of the stages.

1) Pre-relationship Stage

Pre-paid: Apparently, the Pre-paid subscribers are handled by the sales

team alone at this stage. As per the marketing campagn, subscribers are
attracted to the offers and keep in their consideration.

Post-paid: Along with the Sales Team & Marketing Team, the CRM team of
Banglalink plays vital role in building relationship with the potential customer
at this stage. They find potential customers with the help of outsource
provided secondary database.

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Ways to trigger the buyer’s intention to seek Banglalink products/ services:

 Making Appointment with potential buyer

 Identify a problem that buyer is facing or may face in near future

 Offer a solution that Banglalink product will provide

2) The Early Stage

Pre-paid: For pre-paid customers, this stage is insignificant to CRM team.

Sales and marketing team makes aggressive effort to make the buyer
convinced that banglalink is the best choice he can ever make in meeting his
needs. The features of the pre-paid packages (rate, bonus offers and
extensive distribution) are the tools to win the buyer’s heart.

Post-paid: Tele-sales is an important way to proceed the relationship at this

stage. CRM team makes pro-active calls to the potential buyers with whom a
previous meeting was held and now the sales or CRM personnel strives to
influence the buyer to keep inclined towards Banglalink and also to refrain
the buyer from thinking of competitor’s offers.

3) The Development Stage:

Pre-paid: At this stage, the role of CCD takes the most important turn. The
Call center becomes very alert about the complaints and queries that the
customers make through phone calls. And the Customer Care Centers are
also very cautious and caring about the customers who approach the Front
Desk (Help Desk) personnel with some problem they are facing or any query
regarding some new or old feature.

Any complaint that comes to the CCD is treated with high care and solution
is provided within the shortest possible time with the help of technical
department. A flow diagram may explain the process graphically:

Customer CCD Conveys Technical team

complaints toto Technical provides
CCD team solution to
Customer

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Post-Paid: The Post-paid subscribers are given the same care by call center
and care center (front desk) personnel. In addition, the CRM team has a
monitoring unit who monitors the existing Post-paid every subscriber’s
current and previous usage. An analysis is made about his trends on the
various features that he is consuming and also which offers he is not
availing. Based on this analysis, the CRM team makes pro-active phone calls
to the subscriber (usually 1,500 subscribers are contacted per day) and his
feedback is recorded regarding the services he is availing and those he is not
availing.

4) The Long-terms stage:

Pre-paid: For the high level and long time users of pre-paid subscribers,
Banglalink offers some bonus talktime, free SMS etc. All the facilities
provided at the early stage continue and enhancement in the relationship is
attained.

Post-Paid: At the long-term stage, Post paid subscribers are treated as the
King. The CRM monitoring team identifies the High Value Users (HVU).
Especially the out-bound International Roaming users are cared very
sophistically. They are called regularly to know if they need support from the
service providers. Also it is critically monitored which subscribers usage level
is diminishing, who need an extended credit limit, who need any new feature
etc.

5) The Last Stage:

The post-paid users are so much cared at this stage that the relationship
becomes institutionalized. Especially the corporate users are taken care of
by the CRM and the Marketing team. They offer gifts like wallet, jacket, key-
ring, diary etc. in a regular basis (occasionally or yearly) to the high value
users. A Corporate Day Out is arranged by the CCD team of banglalink
every year which invites the corporate users for a day-long entertainment
program. Last year it took place in the Sunderbans and this year A
Corporate Night is organized at the Lalbagh Fort (Some glimpses
illustrated below). All these activities are to retain the customer and keep
the,m satisfied with the banglalink services, at the same time, entice them to
consume the company offered value Added Services. Also there are
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enormous bonus offers at different occasions to motivate the subscribers and
make them feel as a valued partner.

Guards as Mughal Soldiers at the entrance

The stage

The event featured classical dance performances themed around the Mughal Era with the
perfectly complementing backdrop and venue of Lalbagh Fort. A fusion dance with the
signature tune of Banglalink was also performed mesmerizing the audience.

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 Classical dance performance

5. Conclusion & Recommendation:

Since inception, Banglalink has valued the emotions, cultural attributes and
basic needs of the customers. The satisfaction of the subscribers adds value
to the goodwill of the company. Hence, theories of CRM and pertinent
research works have been involved in the story of success of Banglalink.

But the research is biased and incomplete. It has never focused on the bad
effects of using mobile phones. The low call rate and various SMS offers have
caused severe harm to the teenagers, especially, the students. No-a-days,
they chat whole night and ruin their studies and health. Also the misuse of
mobile phone is a common phenomenon e.g. threatening the business
people, disturbing young girls etc.

Hence, proper law should be enforced and due guideline should be prepared
implemented on the purchase and usage of mobile phones. An in-depth
study on CRM and a proper utilization of the findings may be an aid to that
as well.