South African TopTV has done what few pay TVs have failed to do. The company now offers prepaid vouchers for their subscribers.
According to TechCentral, the company has embraced this mode of payment as a turnaround strategy following numerous consultations.
“The past six months has seen a great deal of consultation with our stakeholders, interaction with our subscribers, interrogation and behind-the-scenes work as we have examined every area of the business to assess what is working and what needs more attention,” interim CEO, Eddie Mbalo, was quoted saying.
The prepaid vouchers will be available for only two packages. Variety package will go for R109 (US$13) for a 30-day period while the Ultimate package will for R279 (US$33) also for 30 days. The company will charge R10 administration to be included in the packages.
Upgrade from the Variety channel to the Ultimate channel will also be available. Users can make the switches in the middle of the month, and it would be billed on the balance at the end of the current month counting the days they have been on the Ultimate challenge.
TopTV hopes to cut its costs and offer subscribers an easy way to pay up their subscriptions. This is also part of their strategy to reduce churn and grow its subscriber base.
The company’s chief operating officer Kgomotso Lekola said the service will free up TopTV’s call centre, and customers will no longer need to use their airtime to make phone calls to get connected to the pay TV, as the prepaid systems are almost completely automated.
In a statement, the company confirmed there would be no reconnection fee for those subscribers whose subscription has lapsed.
TopTV is owned by On Digital Media and has an estimated 165,000 active subscribers. The company has however dispatched around 340,000 decoders.
