Press Releases

Budapest, October 1, 2002

From October 1, 2002, the operators of Matáv's Call Center available free of charge can be called at any time from 6 a.m. on Mondays till 8 p.m. on Saturdays. Previously, call center operators were available between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. from Monday till Friday.

Matáv's Call Center (1212) was established as a result of several years of preparatory work. Activities targeting the establishment of the present Call Center system were started in July 1997, in the course of which Matáv laid the new foundations for its modernized customer care organization. Parallel to the launch of the Call Center service, traditional customer care offices were closed, and their sales activities were taken over by "Matáv Pont" retail shops located in the major towns. By December 1998, all residential customers in Budapest were served by the Call Center, and the phone number 06-80 was replaced by easy-to-remember 1212, also free of charge. From March 1999 residential customers in Western Hungary and from April of the same year those in the Eastern part of the country have also been able to manage their affairs by dialing 1212. The number of customers using Matáv's Call Center now covering the whole country has increased from 30 000 to more than two and half million in two years. Now more than 10 million calls are received by the Call Center each year.

Following the establishment of the Call Center organization, Matáv's fill customer care system has been modified; as a result of these changes, our customers can now manage the great majority of their affairs by phone. Services can be ordered and bill information requested at 1212 after giving the customer's ID shown also in the header of the telephone bill.

In addition to its phone-based activities, Matáv's Call Center is available from April 2002 also on the Internet on Matáv's website (www.matav.hu) 24 hours a day.