Measurement of service quality in Bangladesh mobile phone sector: issues, standards and practices

Abstract

Service quality is a very emerging issue in the area of marketing research at present. It is applicable to every sector and organizations profitability highly depend on this. In our country, Mobile telecommunication is playing a vital role to our economy. But, there were hardly any research addressing the issue of service quality in the mobile telecommunication sector particularly in our country. Although, there have been some research done in other countries, linking service quality and customers' satisfaction and continuance intention has neglected in most of the previous research. This study has tried to present an empirical investigation regarding service quality issues and practices in the Bangladesh mobile telecom area. This study also tried to make an association with service quality and customers' perceived value, satisfaction and their continuance intention. Also, an empirical study has been made to identify the net promotion score of the different mobile operators in Bangladesh, which the researcher believes as an unique contribution of this research. To validate the study, this study used a quantitative‐positivist approach as a research paradigm, cross‐sectional design as a survey method for collective quantitative data, Key informant interview and Focus group for collecting qualitative data, convenience sampling as a sampling technique and mainly multivariate analysis ( Exploratory Factor Analysis and Multiple regression analysis) as a data analysis technique. The findings of this study represents some particular service quality parameters that are used as benchmark to measure the service quality of the mobile operators in Bangladesh. A number of factors in service came up, which have a significant association with customers' perceived value, satisfaction and continuance intention. Most importantly, this study found that, even customers perceived service quality is low, they still want to continue the service of their mobile operators due to different switching barriers. Also, the Net Promotion Score of the different Mobile operators are significantly low, even in some cases it shows negative score, which may have a strong effect on the organizations profitability and growth. Theoretically, the study extends service quality research by reframing the concept as a reflective, hierarchical model and framing its impact on satisfaction, continuance intentions in the developing country context like Bangladesh. Practically, for the practitioners and policy makers of various mobile telecom operators in Bangladesh, this study provides a conceptual service quality model for conducting integrated analysis and design of service delivery systems. Overall, in the mobile telecommunication service quality research in Bangladesh, this study makes a significant contribution by identifying the benchmarks and its association with customers' perceived value, satisfaction and continuance intention.