New digital voucher platform launched in Kenya

A new technology called eZawadi has been launched in Kenya, and it is set to revolutionize the digital voucher space in the country to completely overhaul the traditional brick and mortar gifting that uses physical vouchers, and give consumers a totally new gifting experience.

The platform is disrupting the norms in gifting, by automating the gifting process to reduce the turnaround time by over 90%, give users more value and options for redemption, as well as create a differentiated gifting experience.

“We are changing how vouchers or gifting is being done in Kenya by giving you freedom of choice. You no longer need to call a supermarket or any outlet asking for vouchers. With our technology, in one click, all your employees, customers or loved ones, will have an e-voucher redeemable in over 700,000 outlets in Kenya, in all the 47 counties,” Naftal Nyabuto, the eZawadi CEO said.

The company has already amassed a portfolio of over 100 corporate clients ranging from major local and multinational blue chip companies in Kenya, tier one banks, Saccos, insurance firms, audit firms, FMCGs and manufacturers who have embraced the innovation.

On how the idea was conceived, Mr. Nyabuto said; “Innovations are supposed to address societal problems, and a business is part of the society. When I want to gift my loved one, I have to either send money or call a supermarket for a voucher.

This same thing happens to weddings, where someone has to buy a physical gift and deliver it. During festivities, we realized companies have to order a truck load of vouchers for staff and clients. These kinds of inefficiencies, paper wastage and associated costs needed an innovation.”

The technology has been embraced for not only providing a solution that saves companies the cost of inefficiencies, fraud and turn-around time, but also gives them diverse options of creating experiential customer experience.

“For the first time in Kenya, a person can comfortably redeem their voucher from a ‘Mama mboga’ kiosk, whether they have a smart phone or a feature phone,” added Wilson Muriuki, the Marketing Manager, M-zawadi Loyalty Group.

Whether it’s in any supermarket in Kenya, any fuel station, pharmaceuticals, hotels, restaurants, fast food joints or even the next door grocery, butchery, salon or kinyozi, the vouchers can be utilized anywhere a beneficiary would want, with the flexibility to do partial redemption from multiple outlets.

“eZawadi is driven by the need to create personalized experiences through digital vouchers that empowers users to redeem them for what they feel is important to them, rather than being boxed to only one redemption option. This makes this innovation not just attractive but very revolutionary,” the CEO stated.

The platform is currently taking care of two channels; Person-2-Person where you can directly gift a loved using a USSD channel *415*700# or through accessing the eZawadi app on the Safaricom M-Pesa mini app. The second channel is the corporate channel, who use eZawadi platform to create different experiences for their staff and customers.