Service providers believed that the telephone service industry costs free if they choose to retain the customer and costs more if they prefer to attract new customers. KEYWORDS: Service providers / Customer satisfaction / 4 P's of marketing mix / Telephone service industry / Internet users. Communication is also referred to as an exchange of information through five transmission processes including message encoding, signal transmission, signal reception, message decoding and finally message interpretation.
In addition, statistics from the Bureau of National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC, 2015) indicated an increasingly positive constant sign of 1.35 billion in the 6 years from 2012 to date. The NBTC (2015) report refers to the three telephone service providers with the three largest market shares, namely AIS, DTAC and TRUE. As a result, three market shares are very competitive, while the remaining two need major improvements in their operations.
The main purpose of this article is to examine customer satisfaction with the telephone service industry in Thailand in terms of the 4Ps of the marketing mix as numerous researchers believe that 4Ps are considered as one of the important tools that help in the business development and business improvement of the future. market shares (Almossawi, 2012; Leelakulthanit & Hongcharu; 2011; Nimako, Azumah, Donkor & Veronica, 2010; NTBC,2015; Yao, 2014; Yelkur, 2000). Perhaps the marketing mix is considered a basic concept for a marketing plan that helps lead to customer satisfaction.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Telecommunication in Thailand
According to the Thai telecommunications statistics shown in Table 2.1, the dominant players are the three largest service providers such as AIS Group, DTAC Group and TRUE Group, which achieved the highest percentage of market shares of and 22% - 25% accordingly. The percentage of market shares for TOT and CAT, on the other hand, is as less as 0.01% to equal or less than 3%.
Customer Satisfaction Definition
The purpose of this paper is to investigate and understand more about essential of the 4P's marketing mix on customer satisfaction in the telecommunications industry in Thailand. Almossawi also indicated that the 4Ps of marketing mix have a positive relationship in both the short term and long term with customer satisfaction.
Determinants of Customer satisfaction
- Product
- Price
- Promotion
- Place
According to Onlaor and Rotchanakitumnuai (2010), price is a key factor that increases customer satisfaction because whenever a customer evaluates the value of a good or service, they often think of price. This is related to what the perceived value of the product is to the customer rather than an objective assessment of the cost of the product offered (Yao, 2014). Borden (2013) defines promotion as the multiple ways in which marketing agencies disseminate relevant product information to consumers and differentiate specific products or services.
Each touch point should be supported by a brand positioning that can help increase brand awareness, brand perception, customer brand perception, etc. Similarly, some define promotion as the act of communicating the benefits and value of your product to consumers. It then involves persuading general consumers to become customers of the business using the same method as mentioned above (SmallBizConnect, 2009).
Place in terms of marketing mix can be defined as a place or placement decisions associated with distribution channels that serve as the means of getting the product to the target customers. Other service industry such as Jordan Curative tourism has also found the importance of place as a set of interdependent organizations that provide for the process of making goods or services available to the customers (Muala & Qurneh, 2012). As shown above, there are numerous researches and countries trying to focus on how to increase their customer satisfaction using a base plan of 4Ps of.
This represents the importance of the 4Ps of the marketing mix as many businesses and industries believed that customer satisfaction could create lasting business life value for customers and increase their future business growth. Therefore, this study aims to investigate customer satisfaction in the 4Ps of the marketing mix in the telephone service industry in Thailand.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- Research Design
- Populations and Sampling
- Data collection
- Data Analysis
Since it is impossible to collect data from a large population due to time and budget constraints, the conceptual idea of selecting the target population was used accordingly. Before the interview, an appointment was arranged with a targeted group of 25 interviewees who were willing to participate in this study using the quota sampling method. Quota sampling is a type of non-probability sampling that involves a two-stage process for determining a list of relevant control categories or quotas, such as age, sex, income, or education.
A characteristic of research evaluation is the process of gathering information about the relevant program or intervention, in order to evaluate and analyze each determinant of which are the most effective data or factors. Then, the next important step is to be aware of how to deal with the information received, including how marketers can store and improve for better products or services. Another definition of data collection is the ongoing systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health data needed to design, implement, and evaluate topics needed to develop and improve their information (Sminkey, 2015).
Therefore, the data collection method can be used to explore customers' deeper views about mobile phone service, their experience, their beliefs and motivations of individual participants. The questions were divided into three parts, including the introductory questions, open-ended questions, and demographic questions. Data analysis is the part of investigation process that usually takes place only after all data has been well collected.
This is to assess and answer the research hypothesis: to investigate customer satisfaction in the 4Ps of marketing in the Thai telecom industry. The purpose of this study is to understand the big picture of factors that can lead to achieving customer satisfaction, which is good for business sustainability. Coding data analysis is a simple process that people usually do when they read important books or underlines, underline passages or even make notes in the margins of those particular articles to understand themselves.
Coding analysis is briefly mentioned with essential keywords that can be used to prove this theory paper (Seidel, 1998).
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Overall Demographic of the Respondents
Customer satisfaction towards mobile phone service providers Aside from the demographic part, this paper sourced out in-depth –
- Products/ Services
- Promotion
- Place
11 out of 25 respondents are satisfied with their network service providers and 7 are ranked average for their usage experiences. Regarding the Thai mobile phone service industry, almost half of the respondents (12 out of 25 respondents) preferred to serve customers a good quality of mobile phone service even if the price was slightly higher than usually. Moreover, service quality was the first factor that is an important concern for customers.
I like the quality of service because it is very clear and good in most places I have been” (female, private employee). I think it's the perfect service I've ever used as I rarely travel to other provinces but I think it should cover most areas especially as it works so well especially in Bangkok, Thailand” (female, private employee). I just like the brand image because I think it looks strong and seems very trendy when using it” (female, private employees).
Thus, this indicates that most of the service users are concerned about product quality rather than the price of products/services. Sometimes phone users are willing to pay even higher price to get the best quality of service provided by the trusted network. Seven out of 25 participants mentioned second most about the campaign expected from the service provider.
I think it's moving and appeals to me emotionally because the colors, tones and theme are classic and modern and could increase my impulse buying intention” (Male, Civil Servant). The only thing holding me back is using the service for package promotions because I paid 0.25 baht/minute.” (Male, civil servant). It is very convenient for me to make a payment because they have many shops, branches and payment machines.” (female, civil servant).
There are many branches on the way home, and it is very close to my house” (female, private employees).
DISCUSSION AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
- Discussion
- Recommendations
- Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research Although the findings of this study provide some insights information on
- What is your service provider that you are using currently?
- TRUE 2. AIS
- How long have you use the service from this company?
- How much are your average expenses monthly?
- In term of 4P’s of market mix, what do you like about this service provider?
- What do you dislike about this service?
- Any suggestion/ recommendation for the company to do to increase your satisfaction?
- Gender
- Occupation a. Student
- Monthly income
Therefore, customer satisfaction is of great importance, especially when a customer is satisfied with the services offered to him/her; he/she remains a customer and uses services from the same company even more (Kumar & Raju, 2014). Based on 25 interviews, it was determined that if mobile telephony service providers want to gain more customer satisfaction or market share, they should focus on developing all four factors, especially product quality as the first priority; therefore internet speed is included. Moreover, the four P's of the marketing mix show that some people do not really want to change their brand or telephone number, because they have had it for so long.
Therefore, future research should use a larger sample size and use both qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative method helps to explain the quality of the products and provides an opportunity for customers to express their true feelings and moods about the product, while quantitative approach helps to quantify the problem and understand how common it is. by looking for projectable results to a larger population. Interpret the results of regression analysis: P-values and coefficients.” http://blog.minitab.com/blog/adventures-in statistics/how-to-interpret regression-analysis-results-p-values-and coefficients.
80% of internet users own a smartphone http://www.globalwebindex.net/blog/80-of-internet-users-own-a-smartphone. Retrieved from http://www.thephuketnews.com/tot-internet-outage in phuket-blamed-on-single-exchange-failure-54322.php. Retrieved from http://www.yozzo.com/news-and-information/mvno-mobile operator-s/thailand-reaches-55-million-3g-subscribers-in-just-11-months.
