The National Communications Authority (NCA) has revealed that all telcos in the country will from September 8, start to use the same short codes for various customer service activities like recharging credit, checking credit balance and call centre enquiries.
According to statement issued by the Authority, the move will ensure common customer services across all networks use uniform short codes.
Currently, all telcos used different short codes for different basic purpose and it even become even more complex when it comes to number of short codes they use in their Value Added Service activities.
But Director-General of NCA, Paarock VanPercy said in a statement, there is need to harmonize all short codes for general customer services across all networks.
“To this end, all short codes for accessing services including Credit Recharge, Credit Balance, and Call Centre enquiries and other such services will be uniform for all mobile telephony consumers in Ghana, irrespective of their network from 8th September, 2014.” The new harmonized short codes area; Call centre 100, credit recharge, 134; check balance, 124; porting service (MNP), 600; verification of SIM registration, 400; Voice Mail deposit, 108 and Voice mail retrieval, 109.
It said apart from the voice mail service, which may come with charges determined by the respective service provider, all the other short codes are free to use.
Mr. VanPercy indicated that the new harmonized codes will run concurrently with the old codes until April 2015, in order to give consumers enough time to learn and adapt to the new codes.
“In line with this, the NCA and the telcos would be embarking on a sensitization campaign to create awareness of this new initiative,” he said.
Illustrating further, Mr. VanPercy said that all consumers needed to do was to replace the old short code with the new short codes.
However, and as stated earlier, these recharge vouchers are still valid and will be phased out entirely by April, 2015.
He added that, with the exception of depositing or retrieving Voice Mail, consumers will not be charged for using these harmonized short codes to contact service providers or perform other functions. Mr. VanPercy said that the NCA as the regulator is always looking to work with the network operators and other stakeholders to ensure that consumers’ experiences are greatly enhanced.
Business World (with notes from myjoyonline)