Lagos June 8th, 2009: In its continued drive to provide total customer care experience and bring its services closer to the people of Kano state, Nigeria’s  most innovative and highest rated GSM service provider in the country, Etisalat Nigeria, has opened a new Experience Centre incorporating an ultramodern state of the art Call Centre in the historic city of Kano. The Multipurpose edifice was declared open with much fanfare as the company also formally unveiled its two key products easy starter and easy cliq and its ongoing 9jillions promotion to the people of Kano. 
 
CEO of Etisalat Nigeria Mr Steven Evans stated that in fulfillment of its promise to cover 50% of the population by December 2009, full network coverage was now available in most places in the northern part of the country while attesting to his personal experience of testing the network in the road trip through Abuja, Kaduna, Zaria, Kano and Katsina when he paid courtesy visits to the Emirs of Kano and Zaria and the Executive Governors of Katsina and Kaduna States.
 
At the official flag off event of the network which was graced by dignitaries the Deputy Governor of Kano State who represented the Governor, the Turakin Kano Alhaji Nasiru Ado Bayero who represented the Emir of Kano, the Speaker of the Kano State House of Assembly, members of the Governor’s cabinet as well as prominent other citizens of Kano State, Etisalat CEO extolled the virtues of the people of Kano State and thanked them for the warm reception accorded the company since it began commercial operations in Kano in October 2008.  “Kano is a warm and welcoming city where we have found a good home for our business since we began operations here in October last year. We are delighted at the opportunity to officially flag off our operations from Kano and at the same time commission our ultramodern multipurpose Call Centre and Experience Centre here in Kano. We look forward to continuing to do business here in the city of Kano for a very long time to come”, Steven Evans said.
 
27 students of Bayero Universisty Kano, Kaduna State University, Kaduna and Ahmadu Bello University Zaria received scholarships from Etsisalat Nigeria in the fields of Electrical Electronics Engineering, Computer Science and Management Sciences. According to Etisalat Nigeria Chairman, Mr. Hakeem Belo-Osagie, the scholarships were part of Etisalat’s corporate social responsibility programme and were being offered to the best students in the various disciplines identified by the company.

From the flag off event, the cavalcade of dignitaries and Etisalat top management then moved on to the Etisalat Experience Centre and Call Centre in the heart of Kano where Alhaji Mahmoud Ado Bayero, Dan Darnan Kano, the representative of the Emir of Kano, formally declared the multipurpose centre open.

Designed in the unique style for which Etisalat Experience Centres are known, both the Experience and Call Centres are set to meet the needs of customers for information about Etisalat’s products and services and will also be unique sales outlets for all Etisalat products. The Call Centre will ensure that customers who call in to the Etisalat network receive immediate and courteous feedback from the highly trained call centre personnel in the ultramodern state of the art centre.

At the commissioning event, Chairman Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Hakeem Belo-Osagie said that the new Multipurpose Centre will offer the people of Kano and its environs an easy access to a complement of Etisalat services. “The Centre will offer our customers a personal experience of the high quality of service Etisalat strives to maintain in all its operations. Not only do we want to be known for the top notch quality of service of our network, we are also keen to demonstrate to our millions of subscribers and potential subscribers alike that we are a very customer focused organization and have them at the heart of our business. We have well trained and courteous customer care specialists who will provide information to customers on how best to maximize the benefit of being part of Etisalat’s global subscriber base of almost 80 million treasured subscribers”, Bello-Osagie commented.  

With the newly commissioned Call Centre and Experience Centre, customers on the Etisalat network are assured of even more personalized care from Etisalat Nigeria. The Centres will no doubt increase the chances of participation by subscribers on the Etisalat network in Kano state in the on-going 9jillions promotion, as Etisalat services is brought closer to them. 9jillions is Etisalat Nigeria’s unique 3-in-1 consumer promotion designed to reward both old and new customers on the Etisalat network an opportunity to win 2 phones every hour, 24 hours a day for 90 days, win cash prizes worth N125m over a period of five months and also gives one lucky subscriber the chance to go home with an amazing $1m as grand prize money.
 

About Etisalat
Currently standing at the 140th position among Financial Times’ top 500 corporations in the world, Etisalat is the largest provider of telecommunication services in Africa and the Middle East and serves an ever increasing subscriber base of nearly 80 million people across Africa, Middle East and Asia. The innovative GSM provider currently has unique products such as Easy Starter and Easy Cliq in the Nigerian market. Both offer a wide array of innovative and exciting features designed to satisfy all communications needs of its subscribers.