Wataniya unveils unique service
KUWAIT CITY: Aimed at catering to modern lifestyle, Wataniya on Sunday launched a new revolutionary service for women, which enables them to create a social network within its community. Addressing a pack of reporters at the Marina Hotel, GM and CEO of Wataniya Harry Kopponen said: "While designing the new service, we engaged ourselves in a good dialogue with our customers in an effort to assess their current and future offerings. We are confident that this remarkable service will cater perfectly to customers' demands of innovative mobile services." What sets the service apart is that Wataniya offers numerous benefits to the end users including a distinct number range starting with 699xxxx, in addition to rich content services, he added.
Elaborating further, Koppo-nen went on to explain that women subscribers will have a complementary membership in what he termed as "world class concierge service," which in turn would enable subscribers to make travel arrangements, book tickets for a concert, among other things. He further observed that Wataniya "Women' subscribers will also enjoy unlimited calls to all numbers in the same number range and to four Wataniya friends, and a discounted rate for the rest of the calls. "Through this new service, Wataniya intends to understand different customers' needs. It's the first segmented offering that would drive the market expansion."
The new service is available at Wataniya outlets spread all over the country and customers can obtain more details by calling Wataniya call center 121 or by logging on to www.wataniya.com. The monthly subscription fee of the service is KD 59 and there are as many as 10,000 phone lines available at the moment, according to Kopponen.
Allaying concerns that the new service would be misused by some men, Kopponen went on to explain that the service is safe and that those found misusing it would face full force of the law.
Replying to a question whether Wataniya has any plans to launch a similar service to the student community, Koponnen observed that due to certain restrictions it was not possible to provide the service to every segment of its clients. "We have been receiving a flurry of inquiries from our male subscribers asking us as to why we have not come up with a similar service for them. We need inputs like this in order to expand on our services."
Product Management and Manager Juha Korhonen, for his part, observed that the unique number range will help women subscribers to interact with facility, especially at the time of emergency. "The service in question will enable women to talk more." Fielding a question on Q-Tel, Fouad Al-Ablani, Deputy GM said: "We should not have any undue suspicions about a non-Kuwaiti company intending to invest in the Kuwaiti market. Eventually, we will have a unified currency along the lines of the European Union. Therefore, if Q-Tel or any other company decides to invest in Kuwait...it is a move in the right direction. This, in turn, will encourage other countries to take similar initiatives."
By F. A. Clifford Cardozo
© Arab Times 2007
