Abhishek Gupta, Co-founder and Director, Circles.Life.
Abhishek Gupta, Co-founder and Director, Circles.Life.
What sets Circles.Life apart from Singapore’s other telcos.
What do you think is the biggest problem with telco offerings in Singapore today?
There aren’t many services where people are paying more than a thousand dollars a year, and then getting hit by long customer service wait times, hidden charges, a lack of transparency for what they’re signing up for, and no control over their service. Singapore is the best in the world in transportation. It’s the best in the world for safety. It’s the best in the world for quality of life. So why aren’t our telcos offering consumers the best service as well? We got 3G and 4G service much later than nearby nations like Korea and Japan and telcos are still boxing in consumers with outdated in flexible 2-year contracts. 2-year contracts made sense back in the Nokia world when new phones weren’t released every six months, but now I want the latest phone all the time. And their online services – I’m not even talking about advanced digital options, just the basic websites and what services they offer – just aren’t good enough.
How is Circles.Life different?
We’re the first completely digital telco in South East Asia, which means that everything the customer experiences is completely online. That means you’re not waiting in queues. You’re not having to take time off work to go buy a phone. If you want to make a change to your phone plan you can do it on our website or through our app. We don’t lock you into a 2-year contract, our base plan gives you 6GB data and 100 minutes of talk-time, and then you customize it with extra options, or cancel it whenever you want. If you need more data or talk-time, it takes seconds to open the app and choose more. If you need customer service, we have ‘the three tap rule’. Within three taps, you should be able to get a solution for your problem or to a customer service agent who can help you. We use a live chat system to help customers, which means you get service within one minute at the most. No more waiting on hold for twenty minutes for the next available operator.
What does being an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) mean?
It means we don’t have any physical assets – no telco towers, no store fronts. We’ve partnered with M1 to use their physical assets, which means we don’t spend millions managing and maintaining those assets. Instead, we spend all of our energy serving the customer.
What challenges do you face as an MVNO?
Our first challenge was being able to offer consumers access to all of the latest devices, like the iPhone 7. But we’re able to do that now and, in fact, when some of the other telcos didn’t have stock for the black iPhone 7, we had it on our website. The second challenge is being able to offer phone subsidies. We don’t believe that the way to keep a customer is to tie them up with golden handcuffs. We’d rather give you the freedom of a no-contract plan, and then have you stay with us by giving you a high quality experience. And for customers who don’t want to pay all that money up front for a phone, we’re able to offer zero dollars up front, with 6, 12 or 24 months interest-free payment plans through DBS or UOB.
PHOTOGRAPHY VEE CHIN / ART DIRECTION KEN KOH.
