This morning ZOL issued a statement that it was experiencing Network Challenges that were affecting internet services. When this message popped up on Twitter my internet was still working so I thought it was an isolated event. Then as the morning wore on my internet connection started to get choppy and then completely fell off at around 11 am.
I was expecting the outage to last around about an hour like the last time ZOL went down a couple of weeks ago. However, the outage stretched further and further into the afternoon and this was extremely concerning because there are a lot of people who rely on ZOL for internet access.
ZOL’s business clients
Businesses that rely on ZOL won’t be too happy with what happened today. The only way they could have accessed internet-based customer services platforms, connect with suppliers and clients over email would have been to buy employees mobile data.
After having already paid ZOL’s premium prices I am pretty sure that they were expecting the very best when it came to service. At the very least they would have expected ZOL to give more information on top of what they published this morning. This isn’t a very good look for ZOL because they have lost the trust of their business clients as well as cost them a lot of money in contingencies.
Regular ZOL customers like you and I
Because of the pandemic, the internet has become a necessity not only for communication, and entertainment but also for education. E-learning has been accelerated this year and there has been a litany of programs that people have been signing up for or continuing online.
If you, for example, had an exam online or a class and you were on ZOL, then you most likely had to buy data in order to meet that obligation.
This is the same for sole traders who have a part of their business operations that rely on the internet. Money has been hard to come by this year and an interuption like this would have added costs that some small businesses can’t afford.
ZOL’s repsonse
Earlier on we reached out to ZOL to get some answers about what exactly was causing the outage and when internet services would be restored. We didn’t get a response to the inquiry we made. But while writing this article ZOL released a statement and it reads as follows:
Important Notice Update: Network Challenges affecting Internet Services Resolved
Please be advised that service has been restored. If you are still experiencing challenges, kindly contact our support team for assistance.Live chat – www.zol.co.zw Email – support@zol.co.zw Phone – 08677123123
ZOL
After an outage that long and one that cost it’s customers quite a bit of money and time, I thought that we would get something more than this. At the very least an apology with some sort of explanation that isn’t as vague as “network challenges”.
