‘World-class digital box or any dabba. What will you choose?’, reads the advertisement from Tata Sky, urging consumers in the four metros to do enough homework before they choose their service provider. Though the primary intention behind the campaign is to create awareness amongst consumers about the digitisation programme, the idea is also to tell them “not to wait till mid-June and in a rush accept whatever set-top box that comes home”, said Mr Vikram Mehra, Chief Marketing Officer of Tata Sky.
Talking to a group of media persons in Chennai today, he said as digitisation becomes mandatory in the metros, it is estimated that over 60 per cent of cable subscribers in these cities will migrate to the DTH platform.
Observing that availability of set-top boxes would not be an issue, he said creating enough awareness among end users, building efficient billing system, call centres, gearing up customer support systems for services such as allowing each subscriber access to channels of his or her choice, “and more importantly, to install set-top boxes in over 10 million households” could be greater challenges.
Tata Sky, besides offering leading global technology from Sky, offers boxes with 12-month all-inclusive warranty. “And we have been gearing up well on all counts” – by ensuring enough number of set-top boxes in place – be it standard definition, high definition or PVR (personal video recorder) boxes, increasing workforce and training them for installation of set-top boxes, and strengthening the back-end. Elaborating on the company’s helpline efficiency, he said 98 per cent of the calls are answered in 20 seconds. “We are, in fact, considering setting up call centres in every region to respond to customer calls in their language,” he said.
With close to 8.5 million subscribers, Tata Sky is the second largest DTH service provider in the country, after Dish TV.