The mobile revolution is driving innovation across every aspect of life such that any business that fails to innovate and become mobile-compliant may see itself out of the game.
This is why TV stations and pay-TV operators now have mobile applications to allow their customers to stay connected anywhere they are.
Before now, you have to get home and sit in the comfort of your living room to watch that live match or TV show. Today, however, this can be done anywhere, thanks to the internet and mobile applications.
Multichoice-owned DStv is riding on the wing of this innovation with its MyDStv app, which allows its customers to enjoy entertainment on the go. According to the company, the MyDStv app allows users to take control of their viewing experience.
The MyDStv App is an easy and convenient way to manage your DStv account, fix errors, pay online, change packages and update your details all from one place.
The app also allows users to get access to the latest news from around the world, sports games today, and movies. Users can also keep track of movies, showtimes, news alerts, and articles anytime, anywhere.
The app at a glance
Updated last on October 18, 2022, the MyDStv app has a friendly user interface with a beautiful design. However, with a 37MB download size on Google Play Store, the app is on the heavy side and may give users with low phone memory some headache. But the size of the app is understandable given the number of functionalities and services that can be accessed through it.
What you can do with the app
- Check your balance: View how much you owe or have, pay your bills, and always stay connected.
- Manage your account: This feature helps you manage your info and privacy settings, as well as to upload a profile photo.
- Upgrade or Downgrade Package: This allows you to change your package.
- Retrieve details: You can easily recover your Smartcard number if you have forgotten it by using the App.
- Fix Errors: You can easily fix common errors on your DStv decoder to stay watching.
User experience
While DStv has another app for South Africa, the MyDStv app is for Nigeria and other African markets, excluding South Africa. As of March this year, MultiChoice Group’s active subscriber base rose to 21.8 million, 41% from South Africa and 59% from the rest of sub-Saharan Africa.
The MyDStv app had recorded over 5 million downloads on the Google Play Store as of publication time. While the app is serving its purpose in many areas, some users are having trouble with making payments. And it seems the app developers are yet to find any solution to the problem. Here’s what the users are saying through their reviews of the app on Google Play Store.
For Usman Bashir, the app was meeting all his expectations except in the area of payment. He said:
- “This app is amazing. The only problem is when I try to refund or renew my subscription, it usually fails. Most times I use USSD banking to renew my subscription. Please work on the payment part.”
Ursula Chukwu’s experience was not different when it comes to making payments through the app as he continuously received an error message at every attempt even for over a year. He said:
- “I have not been able to successfully pay via this app for over a year or so. Always coming up with this “Oops!!, Something went wrong” message. I have uninstalled and reinstalled it several times. I guess I may not be the only one experiencing such. It’s frustrating!”
Another user, Bayo-Martins Akinleye, also expressed frustration about making payments on the app. He said:
- “If it is possible not to rate this app at all I would not have rated it. You gave me a discount on the app but it always gives errors whenever I want to pay or check anything on the menu. No help or assistance is available. If I call any helpline, a prompt voice tells me stories without end. You better do something about this non-functional app asap. It’s very frustrating! Maybe there’s insincerity on the so-called discount/promo of yours.”
While finding the app so helpful, Morgan Chilenga is not happy that payment on the app is now a problem. He said:
- “The app is so helpful. You do everything you want about your account in one place, faster and quickly in terms of response. I used to trust this app when it was working well but now I am just disappointed. The reason is that I paid my subscription and the app showed confirmation of the payment but started reducing the viewing days and when the next payment will be made. To my surprise am told the payment has not yet been reflected.”
For Tomiwa Abiola Adekunle, it was still about the payment issue. According to him:
- “The app is not bad, but they need to work more on it. Most of the time, if am not at home and someone else wants to make the payment on my behalf it ends up badly. The payment will be declined but the money will be deducted from the person’s account and the reversal is most times not traceable. This has happened up to 3 – 4 times now and that’s not the service I expect from DStv as a service provider. Beyond that, every other thing is fine with me.”
A request to Multichoice for comments on this issue was yet to be responded to as of publication time.
Great review! I’ve experienced similar frustrations with the MyDStv app’s payment system. It’s disappointing that such a powerful platform still has these bugs. I hope they can resolve these issues soon, as it really affects the user experience.