the drivers of customers' satisfaction of airtel bangladesh limited

BANGLADESH RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS JOURNALISSN: 1998-2003, Volume: 7, Issue: 4, Page: 437-445, November - December, 2012THE DRIVERS OF CUSTOMERS’ SATISFACTION OF AIRTELBANGLADESH LIMITEDM. S. Hossain 1 *, M. A. Hossain 2 and M. J. A. Siddikee 3M. S. Hossain, M. A. Hossain and M. J. A. Siddikee (2012). The Drivers of Customers’ Satisfaction ofAirtel Bangladesh Limited. Bangladesh Res. Pub. J. 7(4): 437-445. Retrieve fromhttp://www.bdresearchpublications.com/admin/journal/upload/09366/09366.pdfAbstractThe study attempts to identify the most important drivers of customers’satisfaction of Airtel in Bangladesh. This research also explores customers'satisfaction towards the existing attributes of Airtel in Bangladesh. Thesurvey conduct in Dhaka and Rangpur division during four weeks period inAugust and September, 2012, between 8th August to 6th September, 2012.The study surveyed 120 Airtel customers to determine the key factors thatsignificantly influence on their perceptions. In the study, data have beencollected by questionnaires. They are analysed by statistical tools namelymean, standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of correlation. This paperreports the findings from a survey on Airtel customers on these issues andtests a number of hypotheses pertaining to them. The result confirms thatcustomer value is the most important drivers of customers’ satisfaction ofAirtel in Bangladesh. The study shows that Airtel has been successful tobuild a superior image with some additional features in comparison to itscompetitors and the users are mostly satisfied with the initial price of Airtelconnections, handsets and network. The study also reveals that there aresome factors like quality of air time, service of helpline, service ofinformation centres, high billing rate etc. that are acting behind customers’dissatisfaction and need to be improved for higher market share.Key Words: Drivers, Customers’ satisfaction, Airtel, and BangladeshIntroductionAirtel Bangladesh Ltd. is a GSM-based cellular operator in Bangladesh.Airtel is the sixth mobile phone carrier to enter the Bangladesh market, andoriginally launched commercial operations under the brand name "WaridTelecom" on May 10, 2007. Warid Telecom International LLC, an Abu Dhabi basedconsortium, sold a majority 70% stake in the company to India's Bharti AirtelLimited for US$300 million. Bharti Airtel Limited took management control of thecompany and its board, and rebranded the company's services under its ownAirtel brand from December 20, 2010. The Bangladesh TelecommunicationRegulatory Commission approved the deal on Jan 4, 2010. Airtel is the sixthtelecom operators in Bangladesh. As an emerging company Airtel is doingextremely well. After the launch of Airtel in Bangladesh, the competition hasbecome more strengthen among the telecom operators. Each of them is fightingto boost up its market share by offering new promotion and benefits to thecustomers. Since, all of the operators are offering almost same categories ofproducts it has become a big challenge to retain the existing subscribers and*Corresponding Author’s e-mail: hmd.shamim@gmail.com1Department of Marketing, 2 Department of Management and 3 Department of Finance andBanking, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur, Bangladesh.

Hossain et al.acquisition of new customers. At this moment Airtel is trying to reach thecustomers with various promotional activities and is attempting to make theirbrand presence felt. Through their significant advances in Bangladesh, Airtel ismoving ahead on the track to achieve their goals. Today, it would be difficult tofind a company that does not proudly claim to be a customer-oriented,customer- focused, or even-customer driven enterprise. Increasing competition(whether for-profit or nonprofit) is forcing businesses to pay much more attentionto satisfy customers. The state of satisfaction depends on a number of bothpsychological and physical variables, which correlate with satisfaction behaviors.The level of satisfaction can also vary depending on other options the customermay have and other products against which the customer can compare theorganizations product. Customers satisfaction has now become majorconcern of the mobile service providers in our country. The objective of the studyis to identify the most important drivers of customers’ satisfaction of airtel inBangladesh. The study also focuses on the following objectives:- To know the existing attributes of Airtel and the customer satisfaction leveltowards some selective factors of Airtel.- To show the relationship between customers’ satisfaction and someselected attributes of Airtel.Materials and MethodThe users of Airtel were the population of this study. The study wasdescriptive in nature. This study was mainly based on primary data that werecollected by questionnaires and secondary data that were collected fromjournal, books, website etc. Some data and other necessary information werecollected by interviewing officials of Airtel.Simple random sampling technique was used for collection of primarydata. This study included 120 respondents as the sample. Out of 120 respondents,15 were executives, 50 were business men, 20 were homemaker and 35 werestudents. The respondents had been chosen from the different divisions ofBangladesh on random basis. The data were analysed by statistical tools like SD,mean, coefficient of correlation etc. In this study the hypothesis has been designin the following manner.Hypothesis A:Ho: There is no relation between customer satisfactions and network facility ofAirtel.H1: There is a relation between customer satisfactions and network facility of Airtel.Hypothesis B:Ho: There is no relation between customer satisfactions and call rate of Airtel.H1: There is a relation between customer satisfactions and call rate of Airtel.Hypothesis C:Ho: There is no relation between customer satisfactions and price of subscriberidentification module (SIM) card of Airtel.H1: There is a relation between customer satisfactions and price of SIM card ofAirtel.Hypothesis D:Ho: There is no relation between customer satisfactions and internet facilities ofAirtel.H1: There is a relation between customer satisfactions and internet facilities ofAirtel.Hypothesis E:Ho: There is no relation between customer satisfactions and customer care serviceof Airtel.438http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

Customers’ Satisfaction of Airtel Bangladesh LimitedH1: There is a relation between customer satisfactions and customer care serviceof Airtel.Hypothesis F:Ho: There is no relation between customer satisfactions and roaming rate of Airtel.H1: There is a relation between customer satisfactions and roaming rate of Airtel.Hypothesis G:Ho: There is no relation between customer satisfactions and call quality ofAirtelAirtel.H1: There is a relation between customer satisfactions and call quality of Airtel.Hypothesis H:Ho: There is no relation between customer satisfactions and MMS (multimediamessage settings) facilities of Airtel.H1: There is a relation between customer satisfactions and MMS facilities of Airtel.Hypothesis I:Ho: There is no relation between customer satisfactions and electronic bill (E-Bill)facilities of Airtel.H1: There is a relation between customer satisfactions and E-Bill facilities of Airtel.Hypothesis J:Ho: There is no relation between customer satisfactions and facebook accessfacilities of Airtel.H1: There is a relation between customer satisfactions and facebook accessfacilities of Airtel.Result and DiscussionIt was discussed that Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as Airtel, is anIndian telecommunications services company headquartered at New Delhi,India. It operates in 20 countries across South Asia, Africa and the Channel Islands.Airtel has GSM network in all countries, providing 2G, 3G and 4G servicesdepending upon the country of operation. Airtel is the world's third largest mobiletelecommunications company.with over 261 million subscribers across 20countries as of August 2012.Table 1. Measuring the customer satisfaction level towards network of AirtelSatisfaction level Frequency Percentage Mean SDVery dissatisfied 0 0Somewhatdissatisfied0 0Neither satisfied nor4.2167 .8519233 27.5dissatisfiedSomewhat satisfied 28 23.3Very satisfied 59 49.2Total 120 100.0Table 1 showed that, 27.5% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 23.3% weresomewhat satisfied and 49.2% were highly satisfied towards network of Airtel, andits average value was 4.21 which lied on somewhat satisfied level, The standarddeviation of this statement is 0.85 which is less than 1 that means data points inevery series are very close the mean.439http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

Hossain et al.Table 2. Measuring the customer satisfaction level towards call rate of AirtelSatisfaction level Frequency Percentage Mean SDVery dissatisfied 24 20.0Somewhatdissatisfied13 10.8Neither satisfied nor3.3167 1.5228424 20.0dissatisfiedSomewhat satisfied 19 15.8Very satisfied 40 33.3Total 120 100.0Table 2 showed that, 20% Airtel users were very dissatisfied, 10.8% wassomewhat dissatisfied 20% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 15.8 % weresomewhat satisfied, 33.3% were very satisfied towards call rate of Airtel, and itsaverage value was 3.31 which lied on neither satisfied nor dissatisfied level.Table 3. Measuring the customer satisfaction level towards price of SIM of AirtelSatisfaction level Frequency Percentage Mean SDVery dissatisfied 0Somewhatdissatisfied2 1.7Neither satisfied nor4.7083 .585482 1.7dissatisfiedSomewhat satisfied 25 20.8Very satisfied 91 75.8Total 120 100.0By analyzing it was got finding that was shown in table 3 that 1.7% Airtel’sbuyers were somewhat dissatisfied, 1.7% neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 20.8%somewhat satisfied, 75.8 % very satisfied at price of airtel SIM and mean value was4.70 so customers were very satisfied toward the price of SIM of Airtel.Table 4. Measuring the customer satisfaction level towards of internet facility ofAirtelSatisfaction level Frequency Percentage Mean SDVery dissatisfied 0Somewhatdissatisfied4 3.3Neither satisfied nor3.6583 .8043654 45.0dissatisfiedSomewhat satisfied 41 34.2Very satisfied 21 17.5Total 120 100.0In table 4 that 17.5% Airtel’s users were very satisfied 34.2% somewhatsatisfied, 45% neither satisfied nor dissatisfied toward internet of Airtel and meanwas 3.65 so we can say customers were somewhat satisfied toward the internet ofAirtel.440http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

Customers’ Satisfaction of Airtel Bangladesh LimitedTable 5. Measuring the customer satisfaction level towards customer care serviceof AirtelSatisfaction level Frequency Percentage Mean SDVery dissatisfied 2 1.7Somewhatdissatisfied2 1.7Neither satisfied nor4.2250 .9567326 21.7dissatisfiedSomewhat satisfied 27 22.5Very satisfied 63 52.5Total 120 100.0In table 5 that 52.5% Airtel’s users were very satisfied, 22.5% somewhatsatisfied, 21.7% neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 1.7% somewhat dissatisfied towardthe customer care services of Airtel and mean value is 4.22 so customer wassomewhat satisfied toward the customer care services of Airtel.Table 6. Measuring the customer satisfaction level towards roaming rate of AirtelSatisfaction level Frequency Percentage Mean SDVery dissatisfied 2 1.7Somewhatdissatisfied22 18.3Neither satisfied nor3.4667 .9867529 24.2dissatisfiedSomewhat satisfied 52 43.3Very satisfied 15 12.5Total 120 100.0In table 6 that 1.7% Airtel users were very dissatisfied, 18.3% were somewhatdissatisfied, 24.2% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 43.3 % were somewhatsatisfied, 12.4% were very satisfied towards roaming rate of Airtel, and its averagevalue was 3.46 which lied on neither satisfied nor dissatisfied level.Table 7. Measuring the customer satisfaction level towards voice call quality ofAirtelSatisfaction level Frequency Percentage Mean SDVery dissatisfied 0 0Somewhatdissatisfied0 0Neither satisfied nor4.3000 1.070023 19.2dissatisfiedSomewhat satisfied 38 31.7Very satisfied 59 49.2Total 120 100.0In table 7 that 49.2% Airtel’s users were very satisfied 31.7% somewhatsatisfied, 19.2% neither satisfied nor dissatisfied toward voice call quality of Airteland mean was 4.30 so we can say customers were somewhat satisfied towardthe voice call quality of Airtel. Since, the standard deviation is 1.07 the data arespread out over a large range of values. Though the respondents are having poorcall quality while talking over mobile; some of the respondents are having goodexperience with that.441http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

Hossain et al.Table 8. Measuring the customer satisfaction level towards MMS service of AirtelSatisfaction level Frequency Percentage Mean SDVery dissatisfied 0 0Somewhatdissatisfied1 .8Neither satisfied nor4.4583 .659728 6.7dissatisfiedSomewhat satisfied 46 38.3Very satisfied 65 54.2Total 120 100.0Table 8 showed that, 6.7% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 38.3%were somewhat satisfied and 54.2% were highly satisfied towards MMS of Airtel,and its average value was 4.45 which lied on somewhat satisfied level, Thestandard deviation of this statement WAS 0.65 which is less than 1 that meansdata points in every series are very close the mean.Table 9. Measuring the customer satisfaction level towards E-bill of AirtelSatisfaction level Frequency Percentage Mean SDVery dissatisfied 0 0Somewhatdissatisfied4 3.3Neither satisfied nor4.0667 .8274025 20.8dissatisfiedSomewhat satisfied 50 41.7Very satisfied 41 34.2Total 120 100.0In table 9 that 3.3% was somewhat dissatisfied, 20.8% were neither satisfiednor dissatisfied, 41.7 % were somewhat satisfied, 34.2% were very satisfied towardsE-bill of Airtel, and its average value was 4.06 which lied on somewhat satisfiedlevel.Table 10. Measuring the customer satisfaction level towards facebook SMS ofAirtelSatisfaction level Frequency Percentage Mean SDVery dissatisfied 0 0Somewhatdissatisfied2 1.7Neither satisfied nor4.2667 .7749618 15.0dissatisfiedSomewhat satisfied 46 38.3Very satisfied 54 45.0Total 120 100.0In table 10 that 1.7% was somewhat dissatisfied, 15.0% were neither satisfiednor dissatisfied, 38.3 % were somewhat satisfied, 45% were very satisfied towardsSMS of Airtel, and its average value was 4.27 which lied on somewhat satisfiedlevel.442http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

Customers’ Satisfaction of Airtel Bangladesh LimitedTable 11. CorrelationsNetworkCall ratePrice ofSIMInternetCustomercareCustomersatisfactionNetworkCallratePriceof SIMInternet Customercare443CustomersatisfactionPearsonCorrelation1 -.027 .229(*) -.112 .301(**) .870Sig. (2-tailed).766 .012 .224 .001 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120PearsonCorrelation-.027 1 .152 -.343(**) -.338(**) .453Sig. (2-tailed).766 .098 .000 .000 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120PearsonCorrelation.229(*) .152 1 -.285(**) .373(**) .673Sig. (2-tailed).012 .098 .002 .000 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120Pearson- --.112Correlation.343(**) .285(**)1 .123 .587(**)Sig. (2-tailed).224 .000 .002 .182 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120Pearson-.301(**)Correlation.338(**).373(**) .123 1 .643(**)Sig. (2-tailed).001 .000 .000 .182 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120PearsonCorrelation.870 .453 .673 .587(**) .643(**) 1Sig. (2-tailed).000 .000 .000 .000 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).It had been shown in table 11 that the correlation coefficient (r) forcustomer satisfaction and network .870 customer satisfaction and call rate 0.453,customer satisfaction and price of SIM 0.673, customer satisfactions and internetfacilities 0.587 , customer satisfactions and customer care service .643 , whichwere greater than 0.000. Therefore, it can be concluded that they were positivelyrelated with customer satisfaction. so null hypothesis was rejected in hypothesisA,B,C, D and E .http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

Hossain et al.Table 12. CorrelationsRoamingrateVoice callqualityMMSE BillFacebookSMSCustomersatisfactionhttp://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/RoamingrateVoicecallqualityMMS E Bill FacebookSMS444CustomersatisfactionPearsonCorrelation1 -.163 .030 -.080 -.021 .524(*)Sig. (2-tailed).075 .744 .387 .818 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120PearsonCorrelation-.163 1 .469(**) -.032 .258(**) .980(**)Sig. (2-tailed).075 .000 .733 .004 .001N 120 120 120 120 120 120PearsonCorrelation.030 .469(**) 1 -.041 .433(**) .850(*)Sig. (2-tailed).744 .000 .656 .000 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120PearsonCorrelation-.080 -.032 -.041 1 -.002 .340(**)Sig. (2-tailed).387 .733 .656 .985 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120PearsonCorrelation-.021 .258(**) .433(**) -.002 1 .736Sig. (2-tailed).818 .004 .000 .985 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120PearsonCorrelation.524(*) .980(**) .850(*) .340(**) .736 1Sig. (2-tailed).000 .001 .000 .000 .000N 120 120 120 120 120 120* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).Table 12 showed that the correlation coefficient (r) for customersatisfaction and roaming rate .524, customer satisfaction and voice call quality0.980, customer satisfaction and MMS 0.850, customer satisfactions and E bill 0.340, customer satisfactions and facebook sms service .736 , which were greater than0.000. Therefore, it can be concluded that they were positively related withcustomer satisfaction. so null hypothesis was rejected in hypothesis F,G,H, I and J .ConclusionAirtel is a telecom service providing company where customer satisfactionis both goal and marketing tool. Today’s customers in the telecom industry, wherelots of offers are available, are harder to satisfy. They are smarter, more priceconscious, more demanding, less forgiving and they are approached by manymore companies with equal or better offers. The challenge is not only to producesatisfied customers also to produce loyal and delighted customer. This iscompetitive and customer driven market. It is high time for Airtel to satisfy andretain its existing customers. As the mobile connection price, call charge, eventhe price of the handset have been reduced due to technological advancementpeople of all income level are started using cell phone. Nowadays, most of the

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