Vodafone is now one of India’s Largest Retailers with over 9,800 Retail Stores

With over 9,800 branded retail stores, covering over 1.54 million sq.ft. and attracting more than 115 million footfalls annually, Vodafone India can now be counted amongst the largest retailers in the country. Pursuing a comprehensive, multi-tier retail strategy, the company has further enhanced its nationwide footprint of branded stores by opening 200 Vodafone stores and 1,000 Vodafone Mini Stores across the country since April 2014, thus further cementing its position as not only India’s largest retailer in the telecom industry but being counted amongst the foremost players actively engaged in the holistic development of India’s rapidly growing retail sector.

Commenting on Vodafone’s retail and digital offerings, Kavita Nair – National Head of Retail and Digital, Vodafone India, said, “At Vodafone, we are driven with the singular objective of delivering superior customer experience. Our retail strategy is designed to realize this intent on ground. Through our multi-tier retail format, we are always close to our customers. This helps us understand their evolving needs better and service them comprehensively, end-to-end. This continued focus has enabled Vodafone India set new benchmarks and in the process, become a leader in the retail sector. We look forward to welcoming more customers to our stores.”

Footprint Leadership

Vodafone India has built one of the largest exclusive retail footprints across the country. With more than 9800 retail stores, including 700+ Vodafone stores, 3300+ Vodafone Mini Stores and 5800+ Rural Mini Stores, Vodafone is closer today to its customers via its own branded stores in over 300 towns and 5000 villages across India.

The increasing use of smart phones, mobile internet and new age technologies, has resulted in customer needs changing rapidly, especially in urban areas. To fulfil this need, Vodafone India introduced the Global Design Store - an industry first retail format, which offers a uniform and consistent, internationally benchmarked customer experience through 200+ stores in urban centres, pan India

With rural India taking rapid strides in the on-going information revolution, Vodafone has already marked its distinct presence through its Rural Mini Stores, popularly known as Lal Dukaans. These Lal Dukaans are entrepreneurial ventures located in 5,000 plus villages in the hinterland of all circles. They act as key relationship hubs for the brand as they are managed by local community members.

Building Leading Edge Retail

Future Ready Format

• These stores have premium look and feel with mass-market accessibility and have ‘iconic' elements with interactivity.

• An exclusive mobile internet zone in the store to experience a whole new world of possibilities.

• A one stop shop for all communication needs most suited for their personal requirement- new connections, best of plans, bundled schemes and data services, choice of devices and accessories

• To further enhance the brand experience, customers can also choose from a range of genuine Vodafone Zoozoo merchandise at attractive prices.                                                                                                                                                    

Enhancing Customer Experience

The key pillars of enhanced customer experience are Process, Systems and People. Vodafone India consciously works across these three pillars to build closer connect to customers. This enables Vodafone to understand their evolving needs better and suitably address them with optimum products and solutions. Collectively, the 9800+ branded retail stores welcome over 115 million customers and handle over 140mn transactions annually.

Process:

• Fully Connected CRM: To connect with customers through any channel, location or medium to fulfil their needs

• Vodafone Red Box: A first-of-its kind, free of cost service that facilitates secure data transfer from one mobile handset to another. This service is handset agnostic and is popular for transferring important data including contacts, images, videos, apps etc. from old handset to new handset

• 24X7 assistance for customers to make bill payments or purchase recharge vouchers as per their convenience at over 700 Self Service Kiosks

• Customer Routing: An efficient token based system (industry first) which helps minimise waiting time for customers in store

System:

• Super-Fast Activation: Vodafone was the first in the industry to introduce Fastest Activation of SIM card at the store in 2 hrs time.

• Smart Crew: for maximum fulfillment across counter                                                                                                                      

People:

• Training & Skilling: Vodafone India is rated among the Top 20 Great Places to Work for and is also No 1 in the telecommunications sector. Its retail business provides employment to almost 15,000 people directly and indirectly, making it one of the largest employers in the Indian retail sector.

Having made an early foray in the developing retail sector, Vodafone has made significant contribution in raising the bar of the sector per se by skilling and training youth of the country. It continues to invest over 1.5 million hours annually in further coaching and developing the talent of its retail staff.

• Women Power in Retail: Among the several industry first initiatives from Vodafone India is the concept of Angel Stores - retail stores that are managed and run exclusively by women. The idea was born out of Vodafone’s commitment to encourage diversity and inclusion at workplace. It was also supplemented by belief that women with character traits of greater patience and empathy offer better customer service. Today, Vodafone operates 34 Angel stores across the country.

About Vodafone India:

Vodafone India is a fully owned subsidiary of Vodafone Group Plc., which is one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies. Making its entry into India in 2007, Vodafone today has built an ever growing, robust business in highly price sensitive and competitive market. Serving over 185 million customers, Vodafone provides innovative, customer friendly and differentiated products and services through a wide scale distribution and exclusive retail footprint - backed up with a modern, technologically advanced network for both voice and data.

Vodafone Business Services, the enterprise arm of Vodafone, provides total telecommunications solutions across both mobility and wireline platforms and enables Global Enterprises, National Corporates, SME’s and Government segments to communicate, collaborate and connect.  With the advantage of its global expertise and knowledge of local markets, Vodafone India is well poised to significantly expand the Government's capacity to deliver benefits and outcomes for citizens, governments and businesses. Vodafone endeavours to be a steadfast partner in the Government’s efforts towards Digital India.

Vodafone India provides customers with a new currency in the form of M-Pesa, the world renowned mobile wallet and money transfer service. Vodafone M-Pesa is an innovative, safe and secure mobile wallet that enables complete suite of services like money transfer, bill payments, and recharge on the move from the mobile. It caters to all segments of the society, from the unbanked to the under banked and to the net-savvy and evolved customers. Today, with a pan-India distribution of over 90,000 agents and more than 3 million customers, Vodafone M-Pesa is the largest banking correspondent in the country and is playing a vital role in enabling financial inclusion and m-commerce.

A value based organization; Vodafone is committed to achieving the highest standards of Health, Safety and Well-being for its employees and business partners. As a responsible corporate, Vodafone India has been working with several partners from the social sector to address some of India’s most pressing challenges over the years. Sustainability for us is an ongoing journey as we firmly believe that what is good for the society is good for business.  The Vodafone Foundation too is actively engaged in CSR by harnessing the potential of mobile services and technology to maximise impact within communities, especially in the domains of m-Women, m-Agriculture, m-Education and Disaster Relief.

Vodafone is one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies and provides a range of services including voice, messaging, data and fixed communications. Vodafone has mobile operations in 26 countries, partners with mobile networks in 55 more, and fixed broadband operations in 17 markets. As of 30 June 2015, Vodafone had 449 million mobile customers and 12 million fixed broadband customers. For more information, please visit: www.vodafone.com.

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For Further Information, please contact:

Vodafone India | indiacorpcomm@vodafone.com