GrameenPhone STAR customer program

                                     

Grameenphone started its journey with the Village Phone program: a pioneering initiative to empower rural women of Bangladesh. The name Grameenphone translates to "Rural Phone". Starting its operations on March 26, 1997, the Independence Day of Bangladesh, Grameenphone has come a long way. Grameenphone pioneered the then breakthrough initiative of mobile to mobile telephony and became the first and only operator to cover 98% of the country's people with network.

Since its inception Grameenphone has built the largest cellular network in the country with over 8500 base stations . Presently, nearly 99 percent of the country's population is within the coverage area of the Grameenphone network. Grameenphone has always been a pioneer in introducing new products and services in the local telecom market. GP was the first company to introduce GSM technology in Bangladesh when it launched its services in March 1997.

GP is the leading and most popular telecommunication brand of Bangladesh. GP has the competitive advantage in network coverage. Though it costs more than the other telecommunication brands, it is still the most popular name in the mind of the customers because of its proper customer service, continuous service improvement, offering attractive offers, best network coverage, repetitive advertisement. Recently they are using star customer offer.

STAR Program

GrameenPhone STAR program is designed to organize and appreciate its most valuable customers. A GP customer can become a GP STAR by staying with GP for a considerable duration of time with certain minimum usage. Once a customer become STAR customer, his/her status will be valid for 3 months. 

There are 4 tiers of GP STAR program: Platinum plus, platinum, gold and silver. If anyone want to be a STAR customer there are the following criteria-

Years of stay with Grameenphone	Last three months average usage (BDT) to become STAR
	Silver	Gold	Platinum	Platinum Plus
13+	N/A	N/A	501	3001
7 to 12	N/A	501	1,001
5 to 6	501	1,001	1,501
4	501	1,001	2,001
3	1,001	1,501	2,501
2	1,001	2,001	--
1	2,001	--	--
6m+ to 1yr	2,001	--	--
Less than 6m	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

 Benefit of GrameenPhone STAR:

Items	Platinum Plus	Platinum	Gold	Silver
20% Off at Retail Shop (AGORA)	✔
Privilege at BALAKA Lounge (Shahjalal Int'l Airport)	✔
Platinum Plus Banking with Eastern Bank Limited	✔
Executive Health Check-up (United/LABAID in Dhaka, Gazi Medical College, Khulna & IBN Sina Hospital, Sylhet)	✔
Invitation in Exclusive Events with Foreign Artists	✔
Surprise Gifts	✔
Complementary 5 Star Dine (The Westin & Dhaka Regency Hotel & Resort)	✔	✔
Premier Club Member (Dhaka Regency Hotel & Resort)	✔	✔
Handset (Smart Phone/New Model) Purchase in Less Price	✔	✔
Regional Events (Music/Movie/Drama/Iftar)	✔	✔	✔
Discount on Life Style Offers	✔	✔	✔	✔

Benefit of this program

1) This will help to make more long term and profitable customer relationship. 
2) This will extremely help to retain the existing customer and also increase the satisfaction level. 
3) Beside all these things it will give them a competitive advantage. 
4) It will increase the customer equity.
5) Also it will help them to make more loyal customer. 
6)With this new strategy hopefully they will grab more market share. 

GP 5 kotir network

 

GP is with their popular customer service, network coverage, special offers successfully satisfying customer needs and wants. With all these things they are garbing market share. This year their subscriber number has exceeded 5 crores. A new slogan has been used to celebrate this and that is "Choluk Onuvutir Uthsob Badahin". GP has become the brand that successfully brought one third of the total population. They are also giving special offer like GP-GP 5 poisa/10 seconds.

Referencing
Retrieved November 10,2014 from www.youtube.com. Retrieved November 10, 2014 from www.grameenphone.com. Retrieved November 10, 2014 from www.grameenphone.com/star-program. Lane keller,k. (2013), Designing and Implementing marketing program. In "Stratigic Brand Management".