Customer Satisfaction And Loyalty In Mobile Phone Industry Marketing Essay

Customer Satisfaction And Loyalty In Mobile Phone Industry Marketing EssayA node is the psyche who brings us his wants. He is not an interruption of our work, nevertheless the purpose of it. We are not doing a favor by serving him he is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so (Sara Gustafson, Erica Lundgren 2005).Customer satisfaction is the degree to which customer expectations of a product or usefulness are met or exceeded (BNET Business Directory). The term customer trueness is used to describe the behavior of repeat customers, as well as those that declare good ratings, reviews, or testimonials (WiseGeek).Consumer satisfaction and loyalty plays an important role in the success of any business. Therefore these are considered as priority task for umteen businesses (Kotler et al, 2002), as satisfied and loyal customers bring in profitability and competitive advantage to an cheek (Bowen and Chen, 2001). As Gould (1995) proposes that no company can survive in bu siness with out satisfied and loyal customers. This is the reason, that organizations put efforts to develop and provide offerings to satisfy their customers and maintain their loyalty. Loyal and satisfied customers not only increase the value of the business, but also enable it to maintain the costs lower than those associated with attracting new customers (Beerli et al, 2004).3. Industry BackgroundThe mobile phone service industry provides network service for confabulation of voice or entropy signals through wireless mode. There are more than 74 million mobile phone subscribers in U.K. in which 85% of the adults have a handset. UK represents the most competitive market in Europe and thither is a huge war among the service providers to differentiate themselves from their competitors (Mintel 2008). Subscription levels are evaluate to continue to grow, however, it should be noted that while there were 73.5 million subscriptions in UK in 2007, it has been cited that nine million s ubscriptions are for SIM cards that are inactive and a further 7.7 million that are barely active. Mobile phone subscriptions are forecast to increase in 2008 to 76 million subscriptions. Currently the UK represents approximately 9% of the European market and by 2010 it is forecast to have 78 million subscriptions. (Mintel 2008)There are five mobile phone networks currently operating in the UK O2, T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone and most recently 3. Vodafone and O2 (formerly BT Cellnet) are the largest and oldest. These two networks were joined by T-Mobile (formerly One 2 One) swiftly followed by Orange. All of these companies now operate digital networks. In addition, there are many virtual networks operating on these major networks, packaged under a different name. e.g. Virgin, OneTel, Lycatalk etc.All the above mentioned facts shows that there is a huge market for Mobile service providers in U.K. Mobile phone is everyones need and there is a large customer base who uses the services of more than one network provider.4. Justification for the choice of researchOver the last decade organizations of all types and sizes have increasingly come to understand the immenseness of customer satisfaction. It is a renowned fact that it is far less costly to keep existing customers than to make new ones. It is becoming accepted that there is a strong link between customer retention, customer satisfaction and profitability. In a large area of public sector customer satisfaction itself is the assess of success (Nigel Hill, 2002). Mobile phone network industry is a giant industry in U.K. I chose this research topic because I personally notice there is a huge competition in this industry, and the industry is prone to face problems of customer decay. The average business loses between 10 and 30 pct of its customers each year but they often dont know which customer they have lost, when they were lost, why they were lost or how much sales revenue and profit this customer decay ha s cost them (Nigel Hill and Jam Alaxender, 2002, p 3). A loyal customer feels attached towards the organization and results in profit and growth to the organization. In this exceedingly competitive era, every company tries to offer uniqueness and best value for money, an educated and smart customer has some determinants to choose which organization to stay committed with and which company to switch over.5. enquiry objectives5.1 To find out the right service gapService gap is the difference between the present quality of service and ideal quality of service. It is very important for an organization to know the right service gap so as to focus on narrowing rase that service gap and offer better services to the customer. Nigel Hill and Jim Alaxender have specified five types of service gaps (Nigel Hill and Jim Alaxender, 2002, p 5.)Promotional breakage -When what is state about the service differs from the standards actually delivered.Understanding Gap when managers perceptions of customers expectations are inaccurateProcedural Gap when customers expectations are not translated into appropriate operating procedures / system.Behavioural Gap When the service delivered is different from the specifications of the service.Perception Gap When the level of service perceived by customers differs from the service actually provided.5.2 To find out the degree of customer loyaltyThere are different levels of customer loyalty referred as a ladder of pyramid in literature. These levels of loyalty vary from the customer perspective. These are be as follows (Nigel Hill and Jim Alaxender, 2002, p 16.)Suspects When suspects are unaware of the product or have no inclination to purchase it.Prospects When customers have some attraction towards the organization, but they have not yet taken the step of doing business yet.Customers usually one-off purchaser or may be sometimes repeat tainters, but no real feelings towards organization.Clients Repeat customers having positiv e feeling towards organization, but their support is passive rather than active.Advocates Actively supporting clients who recommend organization to others.Partners Strongest form of loyalty, where both parties regard mutual benefit in partnership.Predicting the right level of customer loyalty towards an organization helps in strategically planning the measures to enhance customer trust and change from bottom to top level of the loyalty pyramid. There is usually a homogenous segment of customers lying at each level. Identifying that segment and planning wherefore will help in increasing customer retention.5.4 To analyse the factors that affects customer satisfaction and loyalty.A questionnaire will be designed with an aim to find out first two objectives and carrying out customer expectations from their mobile service provider. In-depth analysis of the data obtained will bring out the factors that affect customer satisfaction and loyalty. The organization can thus underpin those factors in their customer relationship process and try to retain customer commitment. A committed customer stay longer, buy more often, buy more range, spend more, recommend more, consider competitors less and feel committed. (Nigel Hill, Jim Alaxender, 2002)6. Research MethodsThe research is clearly classified as alpha study. This diversity of study is a valuable mean of clarifying the understanding of a problem (Saunders et al. 2003, p.96). The above research objectives will be achieved using qualitative firsthand data in the form of unorganised questionnaire. The primary data will be collected from the below mentioned sample size in the form of unstructured questionnaires. The research strategy that will be carried out will be Survey in the form of unstructured questionnaire. The research will be exploratory study as the precise nature of the problem is not sure (Saunders et al. 2007, p.138).7. Data collection and analysisBoth primary as well as petty(a) data will be used f or this research. Secondary data will be obtained from various sources to obtain theoretical background for carrying out the research. The secondary data collection source would be - Research Methods for Business Students Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill, 2003. Handbook of customer satisfaction and loyalty measurement Nigel Hilla and Jim Alexander, 2002. Online library resources e.g. Mintel, Emerald etc. afterward getting the theoretical background for carrying out the research, Primary data would be collected from the sample size in the form of unstructured questionnaires. Unstructured questionnaire would be preferred as compared to other survey methods as it will be less complicated and deems fit for carrying our research like this..8. Time scale and resourcesI have sufficient resources to carry out this research. I have divided my research plan into activities with clear completion time frames and my tendency would be fill out the research within the designed t ime frame.MonthDayActivitiesMarch1-15Further reading on key theories and concepts involved in research and lottery relevant information for the literature review.Mid March to April20-30Commencement and finishing of critical literature review draftsMay to June5-30Collection and compilation of research dataJuly to mid August1 17Analyzing the data and writing the first research draft.Mid August to Mid September17 30 amass the final research and carrying out conclusions and recommendations.ReferencesMark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrain Thornhill (2003) Research methods for business students 3rd Edition. FT Prentice Hall Financial Times Pearson Education U.K)Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrain Thornhill (2007) Research methods for business students 4th Edition. FT Prentice Hall Financial Times Pearson Education U.K)Nigel Hill and Jim Alexander (2002) Handbook of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Measurement. second Ed. USA Gower Publishing Company.Mintel (November 2008) UK Mobil e Services and Network Providers.