Customer satisfaction analysis of telecommunication company Vodafone

Customer gaiety synopsis of telecommunication association VodafoneTelecommunication firmament is the man- coatdst one a move through UK and one of the major contributors in UKs economy. on that point ar number of telecom p grades in UK telecom sector and among these players, Vodafone is the leader having 34% market share. The company launched every time new product/service in the market to delight its guests. Sometime the customers tone number of issues or problems with the go for which the company has set up its separate customer care center field (Deurinck, 2007). The customer care standards because play significant role if delivering go and satisfying the customer need. thereof with this consideration the area of the inquiry is to measure the joy level of customers of Vodafone (Bloom, 2006). Further the query riseament let on the importance of customer care standards in telecommunication business and how to imply it into the business to retain the customer. The boilers suit sustain of this look into give be to increase the business profitability and growth through elevated level of customer satisfaction. The explore study is focusing towards the customer care in telecom sector to understand the problems faced by the customers of Vodafone. The hobby enquiry objectives give be achieved in this seekTo detect the key elements of customer care standards to be maintained for the persona of delivery high satisfaction and retaining the customers in Vodafone.to understand the current level of satisfaction among the Vodafone customers with its servicesTo determine the training and development needs to be fulfilled to deliver the services above customer expectations.To recommend the suitable strategies to Vodafone for improving the customer satisfaction level and increasing the loyalty of the customers2. investigate MethodsIn order to achieve the above listed look objectives, an businesslike look method needs to be patterned. A resea rch onion method has been intaked to formulate the research methodology for completing the above e research objectives. A special emphasis has bee given to the operational function of Vodafone, hence with such sensitivity, it is essential to critically re deliberate the available research methods to design the suitable framework. In the research onion process designed by Saunders et al (2003), the following layers populate and by removing out each layer, a suitable step is obtained. Integration of each part from the survival of available methods provides the appropriate research methodology.Research Purpose/Aim/ObjectiveResearch ApproachResearch Strategy selective education CollectionSample SelectionData AnalysisValidity/Reliability of the Data3. Research Aims and ObjectivesAs mentioned earlier the aim of the research is to understand the satisfaction level of customers at Vodafone and customer care standards in Vodafone.4. Research philosophySaunders et al, (2003) research p hilosophy is the proficiency to initiate the research by means of development thinking and the way in which the research want to conduct the research study. A police detective can entertain the choices among positivism, interpretivism and realism research philosophies. Positivism and realism research philosophy is not relevant in this research since both the philosophical accesses work on the behavioral studies however this is the fissiparous research where the satisfaction level of the customers depart be tested. In this study there is no lodge of the behavioral studies. Hence interpretivism research philosophy will be adopted to conduct this research work. besides the interpretivism research philosophy enables the researcher to determine and analyze the different variables. The word of honor of the research findings is more explorative with in-depth handling. Therefore the interpretivism research philosophy is more relevant than the positivism and realism. The results of the study will be interpret establish on the real world findings by interviewing the customers at Vodafone.5. Research ApproachThe second layer of the research onion is research approach which enables the researcher to further make out the excerption of data turn aroundion and data analytic thinking methods. Also the right field research approach enable the researcher to carry off further decided on line of action item that help the researcher to fulfil the research objectives in case any constraints occurs. A researcher thence can make the selection among deductive, inductive and abductive research approaches. Since the philosophical approach is interpretivism which can be better aligned with the deductive research approach as per the argument provided by Saunders et al (2003). Deductive approach is useful where the data is collected from the orthogonal respondents and analyzed to improve the current state. Since the research is focusing towards the customer satisfaction l evel at Vodafone which will eventually increase the companys profitability. Looking at such usefulness the ab-ductiuve and inductive research approached are extraneous to use in this study. Further to justify the selection of deductive research approach, it is provided the base to verify the hypothetic results with the master(a) findings. Hence the deductive research is relevant in this study. It will enable the researcher to turn over the link between the evaluation of research objectives and summary findings which has been derived from the primary and secondary research.6. Research StrategyThe terzetto layer of the research onion includes the choices of research strategies. According to Saunders et al (2003), a researcher can make the selection between the qualitative and vicenary research strategy. In qualitative research, a thorough discussion in held with the qualitative data flecks the quantitative research methods is based more on the quantitative data. qualitative res earch is more useful where the researcher wants to develop the opinion based on the small prototype size. On the other hand the quantitative research is useful where the researcher wants to develop the opinion based on larger sample size. In-depth discussion abstract is employ to achieve the aims and objectives in qualitative research methods, while the numeric analysis is conducted to achieve the aims and objective of the research. However, nightimes the researcher can also use the mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods. Since the researcher wants to collect the opinion of customers of Vodafone to understand their satisfaction level, therefore the quantitative as well as qualitative both the research strategies will be used in this research.6.1 Qualitative StrategyAs per the opinion of Saunders et al (2003), the qualitative research is emphasized on exploring the key points and issues related to the research objectives. The qualitative research methods enable the research to determine the way to secure the insight from the research. Further it seeks the behaviour, value system, motivation, attitude and culture. A lot more approaches for utilization conducting primary research interviews, feedback, reports and other sources are searched out to get the right schooling.6.2 Quantitative strategyAccording to Saunders et al (2003), quantitative research methods enable the researcher to extract the information from the opinion of the orchestrate respondents and conducted a statistical analysis to test the opinion and develop the conclusion of the research. The quantitative data can be extracted using primary research, financial documents, ratio calculation for the purpose of understanding the company performance. It is essential to understand how company is growing the standards for resolving the customer issues for the increasing the loyalty and business profitability. Therefore it is separate method of collecting the information apart from t he qualitative analysis.Under the qualitative and quantitative research strategies, the following data collection methods will be utilized.Data Collection using chief(a) ResearchAccording to Saunders et al 2003, primary research for data collection is useful to collect the honest and real opinion to achieve the research objectives and race the conclusion in more realistic way. In primary research, the researcher can collect the information through various methods such as conform tos, interviews, observations. Hence it is purely based on the field research. Since, the research focuses on the customer satisfaction which will be analyzed by collecting the opinion from large set of Vodafone customers. Hence the survey method is more useful to collect the information. Under the quantitative research strategy, a structured questionnaire will be utilized to collect the information towards the satisfaction of the customer towards the Vodafone services. Interviews and observations are re mote in this research since it can be conducted only with smaller sample size which is irrelevant to draw the conclusion about the customer satisfaction with the Vodafone services. The survey will be conducted among large chemical group of customers of Vodafone to measure their satisfaction level. Given below is the details of sampling method used and profile of the target respondents.SamplingSampling is required to define the method of selecting and defining the sample of target respondent from the reality. The research will use the random sampling method since the research is customer focused and large universe of customer available. The researcher therefore can identify the Vodafone customers only after proper screening. Simulation technique will be used to generate the random samples. Random sampling enables the researcher to reach the right target respondents where the universe is large though the incidence is also high (Banker and Morley, 2007). Since Vodafone is the largest provider of telecom services in UK, therefore the universe of people using Vodafone services will be very high. The following sample size will be used to collect the opinion of the customers towards satisfaction with the Vodafone servicesCustomers cccTarget RespondentsTarget respondents will be consumers of age more than 18 years who are the Vodafone customers and mustiness be using for Vodafone services for minimum last six months. Research will conduct 50% of the surveys with female customers and remaining 50% with male customers.Survey InstrumentAccording to Saunders et al (2003), questionnaire is the best survey tool to collect the information. A researcher can use either the structured, semi structured or unstructured questionnaire. Structured questionnaire includes all close ended questions, semi structured questionnaire includes mix of close and undecided ended questions while unstructured questionnaire includes all open ended questions. The unstructured questionnaire is m ore regarded as discussion guide. The research strategy adopted by the researcher is mix of quantitative and qualitative research strategy. Primary research is used under the quantitative research methods, therefore the structured questionnaire will be apply to collect the information.Secondary ResearchIn addition to the primary research, secondary research will be conducted to collect the information from various secondary sources such as company website, news articles, research reports, blogs, donnish journals and web articles. Secondary data will be collected under the qualitative research strategy. instruction collected through secondary research will used to develop the literature review in this research by reviewing the views from different authors in the context of customer satisfaction.7. Data AnalysisData analysis is the sensitive part of the research. Therefore it needs special emphasis while selecting the methods and tools for data analysis. The right selection of data analysis method enables the researcher to meet the sought after level of outcome and achieve the research objective efficiently (Bush et al, 2008). The data will be collected in the line of research aim and research objective. Since both the qualitative and quantitative research strategies drop been used to collect the information therefore the researcher will represent the qualitative information through discussion critical analysis while the data collected through quantitative method will be presented through graphs and discussion will be made. Moreover the quantitative data will be analyzed using statistical tools such as regression analysis and measures of central tendency (Bucklin, 2004).8. Reliability and Validity of DataIt is essential for the researcher to maintain the reliability and validity of the data to ensure that the conclusion drawn from the research is academically and ethically appropriate and should not be slanted or skewed towards a particular variable. In t his view the research will ensure the reliability and validity if the data by suing valid sources of information. Pilot test will be conducted to ensure that the information collected though the instrument should not be biased and 100% sinless. Further the information collected through primary research will be cross checked through secondary information. Only academic journals and authenticated websites will be used to collect the information.9. Peers Review and Suggestions for ImprovementI have administered the questionnaire among the peer group and after reviewing it, my peers have identified some issues in the questionnaire. Initially the feedback provided by peer group was to make the questionnaire in a proper successiveness as per the recommendation of Deurinck (2007). Also some of the options in each question were not clear for example the service portfolio was incorrect. I made it clear by collecting the information from company website. I have included the likert descale questions and less of the dichotomous questions as per the suggestion provided by peer group.10. Limitations DifficultiesThere could be several limitations the researcher might face while conducting this research. Due to time constraint the sample size small to generate the consensus about the satisfaction with the services provided by Vodafone. Also it could not be the consideration of the whole customer base of Vodafone towards the satisfaction. The analysis and interpretation may not be 100% accurate and free from error. The random sampling approach will be used to define the samples which may not be of the quality which is expected as obtained by the complete enumeration survey as it is not possible due to financial and time constraint (Bucklin, 2004).11. ConclusionThe area of the research is customer satisfaction towards the service offered by large telecom service provider Vodafone. In order to achieve the desired level of objectives and aim, qualitative and quantitative res earch methods have been used to collect the information. Interpretivism research philosophy will be used to generate the desired level of outcome. Primary and secondary data will be used to collect the information. Within the primary method, surveys will be administered among the customer of Vodafone to collect their opinion towards the Vodafone services (Deurinck, 2007).Appendix A QuestionnaireDear participant, my name is____________ and I am pursuing my _________________ from university. I am conducting a research study in UK telecom sector with emphasis on Vodafone to understand the satisfaction level of customers with the services provided by Vodafone and customer care standards maintained by the company to resolve the customer issues in the partial fulfillment of my degree. I ensure that the complete research work is conducted only for the academic purpose and will not be used for any commercial activity. I am assuring that the information provided by you will be used solely in this research and will not discharge any where else I will be highly obliged for your participation in this survey.Would you wish to cross?Yes (Continue)No (Thanks for your time and terminate)Q1. disport select from the following which mobile connection do you have? orangeness (TERMINATE)T-Mobile (TERMINATE)Sprint (TERMINATE)Verizon (TERMINATE)ATT (TERMINATE)Vodafone (CONTINUE)Q2. Please rate me which of the following telecom connection do you have?Post stipendiaryPre paidQ3. Please rate the service provider based on the service offerings provided to you on the following scale?ExcellentGoodAveragePoorTerribleNot SureQ4. Please tell me which of the following offers influenced you to purchase the services from Vodafone?PriceNetwork ServiceBrand ImageVASexpect ValuesQ5. Please tell me which of the following value added services are most satisfactory to you?SMS Packs surrender call ratesInternet serviceFull talk timeQ6. Please tell me how big have you used these services from Vod afone? 1 Month1-6 Months6 M 1 YearQ7. Please rate your overall satisfaction level with the services provided by Vodafone?Very SatisfiedSatisfied nonsubjectiveDissatisfiedVery DissatisfiedQ8. Please rate the service provided by Vodafone on the following scale based on which you think the services are for value for money?ExcellentGood prettyPoorNot SureQ9. Please tell me what kind of issues you have faced so furthermost for which you need to contact customer care/service department of Vodafone?Billing RelatedActivation/De-activation info of VASsNetwork ProblemExpected ValuesQ10. Please think about recent experience you had with Vodafone, how frequently satisfied are you with the customer care service from the company?Very SatisfiedSatisfied objectiveDissatisfiedVery DissatisfiedQ11. Please tell me how satisfied are you with the process of getting your queries end?Very SatisfiedSatisfiedNeutralDissatisfiedVery DissatisfiedThanks for your participation