As Customer Service Week draws to a close, its theme, “The Extra Mile”, captures the effort behind MTN’s ambition to make everyday services effortless. Serving more than 317 million customers across 19 markets means understanding the value of simplicity at scale: reducing the time and effort required to access services, complete transactions and get effective support. 

Delivering that experience across Africa requires a deep understanding of local needs. MTN combines a shared customer experience ambition with market insight, enabling teams to design services around their customers’ circumstances and share lessons across the Group. 

For Selorm Adadevoh, MTN Group Chief Commercial, Strategy and Transformation Officer, the test is practical. 

“Customers experience our strategy through the moments they have with MTN,” he says. “The test is simple: can they connect, transact or get help without unnecessary effort? Our markets know their customers best. The Group’s job is to help them solve the problems that matter, learn quickly and share what works.” 

MTN’s approach starts with designing simple, intuitive customer journeys. 

“Digital Self Service should make everyday tasks easier, with AI helping to reduce effort and provide more relevant support,” says Adadevoh. “Human assistance must remain accessible when customers need it. Listening to customers should guide how we design and improve those services.” 

For Adadevoh, the experience must also give customers confidence that a service has worked as expected. 

Trust is built through reliable services and clear, consistent interactions,” he says. “Customers need confidence that their connection works, their payment has completed and any problem is resolved quickly and transparently” 

These priorities support MTN’s ambition under Ambition 2030 to become Africa’s most trusted and effortless experience provider. Across its markets, the approach is taking practical form. 

MTN Nigeria has added voice capability to Zigi, its AI-powered digital assistant within the myMTN NG app. Customers can now speak to it to check balances, buy data, review usage and get help, giving them a choice between conversation and text when managing their services. 

The growing role of digital self-service is evident in South Africa. Between January and September 2026, MTN Chat usage increased by 90%, while engagement on the MTN App grew by 72%. These channels bring everyday tasks into familiar digital settings, with WhatsApp-based MTN Chat providing access to transactions and support, and the app offering account management, personalised offers and rewards. 

The experience also depends on work customers rarely see. In Rwanda, MTN is using AI-based tools to identify transmission faults and their likely causes earlier, helping technical teams respond more quickly when network performance begins to deteriorate. This supports the availability and reliability of the connections customers depend on. 

The needs differ across these markets, but each example offers lessons in making services easier to use and depend on. MTN’s pan-African footprint allows teams to draw on that experience and assess where an approach can address a similar need elsewhere. 

“Some of our strongest ideas come from teams closest to the customer,” says Adadevoh. “What works in one market can offer useful lessons for another. The important thing is to understand why it works and adapt it to the customers and circumstances there.” 

That work becomes more consequential as digital services support a greater share of everyday life and economic activity. The GSMA expects mobile technologies and services to contribute around US$290 billion to Africa’s economy by 2030. For people and businesses relying on those services, straightforward access, effective support and dependable connections help them put connectivity to productive use. 

Customer Service Week celebrates the people behind good service. Their work carries a responsibility that lasts all year: ensuring that as digital services become more capable, they also become easier to use and depend on. For MTN, going “The Extra Mile” means turning the strength of a pan-African business into something customers can recognise in everyday service: less effort, greater control and confidence that things will work.