There is nothing as bad as receiving irrelevant texts that just play as destruction and a nuisance all day long. It is not only irking but time wasting as well. I came across a study where receiving motivational and reminder messages has been proven to help lose weight. Talk of weird. Whether true or not, the daily reminder texts I receive from Safaricom are not of any benefit to me and my body! They are nothing but a nuisance.

In this time and day, I am sure there are a multiple of channels companies providing either services or products use to deliver the desired message to clients. I am against Short Message Services which is probably the simplest and most effective way to reach customers especially for the telecommunication companies who do not have to source for our contacts elsewhere. But when does this information become too much? When your phone is on a routine vibration after a certain duration of time which is just annoying.

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It’s a different day where we sleep with our phones at close range even worse just next to our ears. I hardly chat with friends and family past 9pm or to put it clear I hardly text. But I keep receiving bulks of text messages notifying me of services I already know of. On a normal day, I will wake up to a Safaricom text message not one, not two even four at a go. I have no reason for pan here, it is an irritation. That is my normal morning; My day even gets worse when I have to keep responding to multiple phone vibrations coming from Safaricom.

I thought I was on Safaricom’s whitelist or one of the favourites so I decided to consult my friends, colleagues and family. The responds I got were quite interesting. Some are even convinced Safaricom is the other reason their phone battery runs low after data use. May be figurative form of communication but this says how much a piss it is to keep receiving this text messages. Sheldon* (not her real name) the other day switched off her phone for about 8hrs, just one of those days you want to have some alone time . On switching on her phone in the evening, fifteen messages among which she received were from Safaricom reflecting on transactions she had done more than 24 hours ago and services she should know about. She decided to call customer care to enquire on the messages that had now become a bug. The lady at the other end of the phone was bold enough to blame it on their systems. I call that guts. Why are your systems supposed to be my problem when in any case the company has you to keep tabs on whatever I receive on my end? That was quite a disappointment I actually prefer the normal response companies and organizations have adopted; ‘we are going to look into that, sorry for the inconvenience.’

I am currently scrolling down my Safaricom message thread that is unending and looking at the timeline, there are morning texts, noon, they have to notify me on something and between 2pm and when I get to sleep, they still have to squeeze a couple. No it is not okoa Jahazi if you think that might be the case here neither is it debt payment threats from M-shwari. They are letting me know I can now get a loan from their M-shwari platform and I can use my Bonga points for text messages and calls in case I ran out of airtime. They are also unable to process a request for the MasaaYa SMS service and I should contact them for more information. That is a request I did not make mind you. I am not even using their limited SMS services.

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When I am at a meeting and I accidentally forget to put my phone on silent mode, I keep getting stone cold glances from people who think I choose to be rude enough to text while on session. They are like stalker texts; ask me about that. I am however happy you guys or rather your systems were keen to wish me a happy birthday. (You know me too well) This is more of a personal relationship than a customer relationship between Safaricom and I. not only me, this applies to many others.

Dear Safaricom, do you know how much time of my day you take? Amazingly the text messages will be chilled out on weekends when I have all the time to read them. I appreciate your concern for customers who actually need or have a right to know what is unfolding by the day. It is never something new though, it is something I happen to know of. In any case, there are billboards about your services on almost all highways I use, I have a television and channels will definitely sneak your advertisements in between programmes, even better, you guys have a Facebook page, an official website and a twitter handle that I can always visit to know more. Also, I can always subscribe to your Newsletters, visit your customer care centres, the list is endless but you choose to subject me to so many text messages that just fill by inbox and anyway I will delete a couple of them even without reading. I am sure there is an alternative to getting your updates.

Yours Sincerely.