Airtel to roll out 50 ARCs in the country

Bharti Airtel, a leading telecom operator in the country, will launch at least 50 Airtel Relationship Centres (ARCs) in the country soon.

Presently, the company is in the process of launching three of them, one each in Delhi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. Of the three, Airtel launched first in Ahmedabad today.

The ARC will be first of its kind, offering 'customer experience enhancers' like easy pay kiosks, queue management systems, LCD display monitors and express counters. The centres will be 24x7 stores throughout the year.

In Gujarat, Airtel will launch these stores in Surat and other centres soon. "We want to grow in terms of network, improve services and availability of products for the present fiscal. These stores are part of the plan. We will be offering integrated services through ARCs like mobile, landline and broadband services under one roof," said Sharlin Thayil, Chief Operating Officer, Airtel Gujarat circle.

With the help of Easy Pay Kiosks, customers will be able to pay mobile, telephone and broadband bills through credit cards and cash at the ARC.

According to Thayil, mobile users in Gujarat prefer more value-added services like SMS, MMS, Hello Tunes and other downloads. For this the company will be introducing more services time and again, said Thayil.

Thayil added that for rural market, Airtel is "coming out with consumer propositions that satisfy rural consumers like easy handsets, better services, and services in regional languages". Presently, Airtel has a footprint in 247-odd census towns and 50 per cent of the 18,000 odd villages in Gujarat.

"Gujarat has been growing in the telecom sector at a rate of 60-70 per cent year on year. Our urban-poor subscription ratio itself has shifted from those 90-10 to now 60-40 and is growing to improve. In terms of infrastructure also, we would want to grow from the current 2,000 towers that we have in the state," added Thayil.