Customer service experience and satisfaction in the mobile telecom industry

Abstract

South Africa’s mobile telecom industry serves a highly saturated market that is challenged by factors such as fierce competition, high inflation rates, and the detrimental effects of load shedding. Against this backdrop of intensifying challenges, it is concerning to note that customer service experience and satisfaction within the industry are also declining. Consequently, mobile telecom providers should adopt a value-added approach to customer service in an effort to differentiate them from other industry rivals. This research, therefore, focuses on investigating mobile telecom customers’ service quality experiences and satisfaction, with the goal of gauging the extent to which service quality influences customer satisfaction insofar as to propose effective approaches for amelioration. The research utilised a quantitative descriptive research design to collect the empirical data using computer and self-administered questionnaires from 300 South African mobile telecom users. Non-probability convenience sampling was used to select respondents. A standard multiple regression analysis was conducted to uncover the influence of respondents’ service quality experience on their satisfaction with their mobile telecom provider. Based upon the results, it can be advised that to achieve customer satisfaction, mobile telecom providers should focus on providing reliable customer service, by ensuring that they fulfil their customer service promises, follow up with their customers, improve their complaints handling procedures, and ensure that customers’ expectations are met. Mobile telecom providers should also be empathetic in their service delivery process, which can be achieved by offering personalised and/or customised services, informing customers of potential service interruptions, having employees available to assist customers (considering the customer’s working and socialising hours), and keeping ustomers informed of their operating hours.

Keywords

• customer service
• service quality experience
• customer satisfaction
• mobile telecommunication