Customer satisfaction in the mobile telecommunication industry - Dissertation Example

Customer satisfaction in the mobile telecommunication industry Introduction A customer is the most valuable asset of any business and, therefore, a lot of energy should be directed towards this key ingredient by making sure they are fully satiated. Customer satisfaction describes the situation where the total percentage of people using a product expresses satisfaction to a certain product. Previous research has shown that customer’s attitudes have changed over the years with customers becoming more demanding and less tolerant in their expectations. In addition to that, there is a wider range of choice with goods having several substitutes shifting power to the customer. Customer satisfaction metric is particularly useful in managing and monitoring businesses (Farris et.al, 2010). This is especially so at a competitive market place like the mobile telecommunication industry in Nigeria. For a good research, one should ask himself about his expectations, availability of the participant and whether the participants are a representative of the population (Mellenberg & Hand, 2008). The Nigerian mobile telecommunication industry characterized by fierce competition between few companies comprising of South African mobile operator MTN, Nigerian multinational telecommunication company Globacom, Indian’s giant Bharti Airtel, UAE’s mobile operator Etisalat and Nigeria’s Principal mobile operator Mtel (Nigerian Communications Commission, 2011). Importance of research Basically, the purpose of research is the production of knowledge on how to best address the world’s problems, new ideas that lead to improvements and evidence carefully and meticulously gathered. Research on customer satisfaction involves finding out what a customer wants, how he wants it and providing it when he needs it. Several scholars in the business field recognize that substantial investments have been put in research on customer satisfaction. A successful company like Wall-mart knows more about its customers and uses this information to generate profits (Denove & Power, 2011). The only way to know whether customers are satisfied with a certain product is by doing research especially in a market like the mobile telecommunication industry in Nigeria. In cases of such an industry, even the employees of that company are customers, and their attitudes towards their employer affect their dealings with the customers. If satisfied with the services of their employer, such employees will work hard not just in their dealings with a customer but also in evangelizing for the firm. Herein arises the fact that it is crucial when doing research a company should cater for both its internal and external customers. Customer satisfaction is an unclear and undefined field having personal bias affecting judgment and, therefore, any company should strive to know what satisfies their customers through intense research. Apparently, psychological aspects together with physical variables directly affect utility of a product which in turn determines customer recommendation on such a product. Thus, this is a complex cycle and can only be unearthed by research done from time to time. Research philosophy My approach to research is one of searching for valuable knowledge of issues affecting us in the everyday life. The world is complex and keeps emerging as such it is almost impossible to understand the world through principles (Lancaster, 2005). My research agenda can be divided into two; customer satisfaction and changing trends in the mobile telecommunication industry. In my research, I have found evidence that deep unanswered questions on customer satisfaction affect most businesses eating deep into their profit account. I hope to pursue this issue with an aim of helping businesses and I understand the customer’s satisfaction better to maximize profits. Research methodologies This section describes procedures that were followed in conducting research. The pertinent areas to be discussed here are; research design, population, sample and sampling techniques, data collection instruments, administration of the instrument, validity and reliability of the research instrument, method of data gathering and data analysis and problems encountered on the process of research. Research design was based on the research question hence the use of qualitative approaches to collect data. This is because the research was theory driven with quantitative variables. The population is the entire collection of the people involved in research, in this case those who use services from the mobile industries mentioned earlier. A sample is a subset of all the population and due to the infinite nature of data to be collected random method of sampling was used. Here, the chance or probability of an item appearing in the sample is known and is equal for every item (Saunders &Adrian, 2007).This is also known as random probability sampling, there are several ways of doing this as mentioned below; Systematic random sampling where instead of using random numbers, a regular spacing is employed taking every kth element. (k is the reciprocal of the desired sampling fraction). This was found to apply to this research. Stratified random sampling where population is divided into sub-sets and separate samples are drawn from each. Cluster random sampling is useful for widely spread populations and involves arranging population into groups called clusters then meticulously choosing representative clusters. Examples of data collection instruments widely range from written materials like diaries, books and newspapers, human observers, mechanical devices like cameras, questionnaires, interviews and focused group discussions chosen on the credibility of information required in the study. It should however be noted that each method has its advantages and limitations and this was considered when choosing a method, questionnaires were used both pre-test and post-test. The questionnaires were delivered online, among the challenges encountered during the research is the fact that only a certain population of Abuja is literate minimizing the number of subjects used in the research. Funding was a problem for me when doing surveys, and convincing people to fill the forms online was also a very hard task. Research approach This research comprises of three main parts; formulation of a theory, collection of data and interpretation of the data. This work examines the mobile telecommunication industry in Nigeria with a goal of finding out what customers define as a satisfactory mobile service in Nigeria. The proposed hypotheses include; H0: Customers are not satisfied with the services provided by MTN Nigeria H1: Customers are satisfied with the services provided by MTN Nigeria. H2: There is no relationship between customer services and customer satisfaction H3: There is a relationship between customer services and customer satisfaction The first stage was to identify the mobile service providers in Nigeria as identified in the introductory part of this research. The leader in this industry is MTN Nigeria reasons as to why would be discussed after evaluation. This was an online survey and customers were expected to fill the survey questionnaire form online. The data is then available for analysis; evaluation is then done to find out the preferences of users are and inferences made from that. Research strategies This is a very important part of the research as it gives direction to your efforts enabling systematic conduction of research. Qualitative and quantitative methods of research are much related (Uwe, 2010). For instance, research methods and designs use both qualitative and quantitative data and when assessing the quality of research, qualitative criteria can be applied on quantitative research while at the same time application of quantitative criteria when conducting qualitative research is possible. Qualitative research This is more inductive where a theory is formulated after observation of an issue (Marshall 2006). Positivism is applied here, intuition and introspection are rejected, and data analysed is from sources like interviews, objects and pictures. It is concerned with process rather than outcomes and is descriptive in nature. Quantitative research It encompasses numerical data, is deductive in nature where a theory is tested to find out if it is true or not. The researcher is detached in this case taking an objective view of the study. The procedures of both qualitative and quantitative research can be summarized as below; Qualitative research 1. General research query. 2. Selection of subjects from population 3. Data collection 4. Analysis and interpretation of data 5. Theory work 6. Specification of research query 7. Specific data collection 8. Theory work 9. Results, observations and conclusions Quantitative research 1. Theory 2. Hypothesis formulation 3. Research design 4. Selection of population 5. Sampling 6. Data collection 7. Data analysis 8. Results and conclusions Adopted research method The adopted method was the use of qualitative research through administering questionnaires online. Both pre-test and post-test questionnaires are used, this was coupled with in-depth interview in cases where I could meet respondents on one on one basis. Research procedures The research procedure includes; identifying research question, selection of population, using pre-test questionnaires to collect data, data analysis, specification of research question, administering post-test questionnaires and finally making inference from data collected. Sampling method Before sampling, we should ask ourselves the question, why sample? Sampling is done mostly in cases where the population counts to infinity. Thus, it reduces the time taken in taking data, cost and is useful where populations keep changing requiring repeated measurement. The sampling method used in this case is systematic random sampling, sample size is determined by looking at how many groups of customers the data is expected to represent, that is the representative sample. According to Sekaran (2009), an ideal sample size is one containing a minimum of 30 and a maximum of 500 because they are easy to work with and represent the characteristics almost similar to that of the whole population. Having in mind these limitations, the sample size for this research proposal would be selected from Nigerian mobile users who subscribes to the MTN network with the total sample size of 100 respondents. Data collection methods Data accuracy and quality are determined during data collection to avoid sampling error or in other words collecting samples whose characteristics deviate from population characteristics. Data collection methods vary along two continuums, one of them quantitative methods of data collection under which experimentation, observation(participant and non-participant) and surveys are utilized. Qualitative methods on the other hand comprise of document review and in-depth interviews which were the main method of data collection in this research. Kumar 2006 observed that in-depth interview is directed towards understanding the customers feeling, experiences and expectations in their own words. Primary data is phrase that would basically be described as original data, it involves collection of data without referring to any other pre-collected data Secondary data is data collected from already existing sources (Schutt, 2006), one can use newspapers, textbooks or even census to obtain secondary data. Questionnaire pre-test and & post-test. Both pre-test and post-test questionnaires were given to respondents. The purpose of the pre-test questionnaire was to help in specifying the research question and providing progress for funding. The post-test questionnaire was used to collect data for the specified research question and to know whether or not to continue with research (Marczyk et.al., 2010). Sample size Knowledge from (Sekaran, 2009) is used to identify sample size, a sample size of 100 is found to be reasonable and easy to work with. Data analysis and interpretation In the process of research, data analysis was done after the both the pre-test and post-test questionnaires. Ader & Mellenberg (2008), observed that data can be analyses using the quality of data, quality of measurements and the question as to whether the implementations of the study fulfilled the research design. This helps in making sense of all data collected and in cases where charts and graphs are needed for reference. Trustworthiness & reliability According to Kumar (2007), even if we consider the measures totally reliable, there is still a possibility of it not measuring that what we think it has measured completely. Reliability in conventional usage means something accurate and trustworthy but data is affected by bias and personal judgment. Conclusion Before any research is undertaken, we should ask ourselves whether it is worth doing the research and the impacts it will have in the society. When undertaking research on customer satisfaction in the mobile telecommunication industry, I found out that personal influence was the driving factor in choice of mobile service provider. If one has most relatives in one mobile service provider, there is a 70% chance of choosing the same mobile service provider. The reason for this is because of offers on calls offered on calls on the same service provider as compared to communication between different service providers which tends to be more expensive. Customer satisfaction is also a very important factor when choosing a mobile service provider, the more satisfied a customer is, the higher the chance of him sticking to the same provider. It should however be noted, there is a major difference between customer loyalty and satisfaction. Satisfaction does not affect loyalty, neither does loyalty affect satisfaction and any successful business should be able to differentiate the two. References Ader, H, J. Mellenberg, G, J. and Hand, D, J. 2008. Advising on Research Methods;A Consultants Companion, Huizen: Johannes Van Kessel publishing Denzen, K, D. & Yvonna, S. 2008. The Sage Handbook of Qualitative research. 4th ed. Carlifornia: Sage Publishers. Elana,E, J. Slater, T. & Brucknam, A. 2011. Action Research for Business Non-Porfit and Public Administration- A Tool for Complex Times. California: Sage Publishers Gima, W. 2009. The Undergraduate Research Handbook. London: Macmillan Publishers Hair, F,J.Celsi, M, W.Money, H, A. Samouel,P. & Page, J, M. 2011. Essentialof Business Research Methods. 2nd ed. London: Sharpe Publishers Holiday, A, R. 2007. Doing and Writing Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publishers. Kumar, R. 2006. Research Methodology; A Step by Step Guide for Beginners. 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