An Ericsson ConsumerLab report suggests that there is a need for Indian telcos to increase focus on quality of service (QoS) and overall customer care experience to improve customer satisfaction.
According to the study, consumers compare their experiences with mobile operators to those with service companies from other industries and thus have different expectations.
The study reveals that one-third of existing mobile users feel that operators are the most frustrating service companies to interact with. "Findings across four markets (US, India, Brazil and Russia) highlighted customer service as an important touch point to drive consumer satisfaction. For India, initial purchase experience and customer service emerged as priority touch points," said Ericsson's Region India Head, Chris Houghton.
One in three urban mobile users claim they do not find mobile plans that best suit their usage patterns while 85 percent rate quick activation of services as very important.
The Indian telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority Of India (TRAI) said in its report that more than 100 million mobile subscribers changed their service provider by using the mobile number portability (MNP) service as of August end, which testifies that customers are switching to other operators if their demands are not fulfilled by an existing telco.
Poor customer service, network or mobile internet performance accounts for half of the issues faced by mobile users who are looking to switch operators.
The study reveals that a quarter of urban mobile users are currently facing issues with their operators. However, on an average, just under half of all problems are relayed back to the operator. The impact of a poor experience has 47 percent of consumers thinking of switching operators.
Due to bad customer experience, users often don't report future concerns to them and instead try to change their mobile operator altogether. The report said that one in four urban Indian mobile users is currently facing some sort of issue with the operator but only half of all issues were reported.
The ConsumerLab study found that mobile broadband consumers with a positive service experience are three times more loyal to their operator than a consumer with a dissatisfied customer service experience.
In addition to that, the report points out that customer executives of Indian telcos are not fully equipped to handle customer queries. The study suggests that operators must equip customer care executives with the tools needed to improve service delivery.
The study found that three out of five telecom customer care agents find it difficult to respond to the more complex queries presented by data intensive users, and thus the need to bring transformation in customer service.
"Over 77 percent indicated a need for a single unified view of the customer's account. This will help them take decisions in the best interest of consumers while improving consumer experience," the study states.
The long hold times experienced when calling mobile operators' customer care centers is often because 40 percent of agents claim they have to switch between four screens to solve a single query.
With increasing smartphone uptake and data usage, the study advises that operators must fulfill basic needs such as high accuracy in billing and charging, high quality network performance and delighters such as assured mobile internet speeds, rewards, and loyalty programs.
The study says that all of these factors will increase satisfaction proportionately. Consumer expectations are growing in line with device complexity and mobile data usage
Mobile operators are facing a rate of churn that is increasing as users adopt new advanced data services. "Mobile broadband customer service needs more focus as smartphone users are twice as likely to face issues such as slow speeds and dropped data connections," said Houghton.
—Danish Khan, Correspondent Light Reading India
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