The prepaid market has been a panacea for those contracts (and free phones) denied by the Global System for Mobile Communications [GSM] carriers because they either don't have a credit card or earn less than the minimum required. It is against this background that the author wants to undertake research to determine what factors influence student cell phone users to use the prepaid system. What factors are most important to student mobile phone users at Cape Technikon when making a choice between prepaid or contract services.
The first objective is to obtain concise information about what students consider to be the most important factors when choosing between contract and prepaid services. The second goal is to establish income/reimbursement for students that is relevant to their choice between prepaid and contractual services. Mobile operators could use the results to focus on the specific factors that attract the prepaid youth market and thereby improve their communication strategy.
Further research into the young prepaid mobile user could be carried out nationally and internationally.
LITERATURE REVIEW
- Introduction
- Service Oriented Organisational Structure
- Internal Marketing Approach
- Common Characteristics of Services
- Characteristics of services
- Selecting a Position
- Specific Positioning
- Positioning Errors
- The Technological Revolution in Services
- Positioning the Cellular Industry - The Product Life Cycle
In addition, senior management is often surrounded by a staff organization, which isolates it from the rest of the organization, including service meetings and customers. The old traditional view of the organization and the modem service-oriented organization are schematically illustrated as a pyramid in Figure 1. Second, based on the nature of the relationship with customers, services can be divided into continuous services and discrete transactions.
Occurs when customers become part of the production process and the servicefinn needs to maintain local geographic presence, for example in the manufacturing sector. The object must be involved in the product process, but the owner of the object (the customer) must not. Developing a positioning strategy can take place at different levels, depending on the nature of the organization involved.
Attracting new users of the product can be another strategy that marketers use in the maturity stage.
![Figure 1: Service Orientated Organisational Structure [Gronroos,2001 :305]](https://thumb-ap.123doks.com/thumbv2/pubpdfnet/10631175.0/13.870.181.703.819.1067/figure-service-orientated-organisational-structure-gronroos-2001-305.webp)
PREVIOUS RESEARCH
Youth and Prepaid
Cellular carriers and equipment manufacturers target much of their marketing to young people, as research undertaken by a Boston-based firm, Cahners, In-Stat Group, indicates that the youth market has the greatest growth potential. Cellular operators are making the idea more palatable to parents by offering prepaid services that limit the minutes used each month. Paul Edwards, chief executive of telecoms group M-Cell, which owns MTN, says research into the youth market indicates that the majority of prepaid users make cellular calls of less than a minute.
Extensive publicly available research was not available on the prepaid youth market in South Africa. According to the author's research, the prepaid option has gained a lot of support from the South African population, which also applies to the youth market. The factors that influence the youth market when taking up a prepaid service are very interesting.
It is with this in mind that the author wants to research the youth/student Cellular Market at Cape Technikon.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- Research Approach and Strategy
- Questionnaire Design
- Sampling Method
- Reason for the Sample choice
- Data Analysis
- Credibility and Ethical Stance
The questions were designed by consulting the literature and a pilot study was undertaken with a small sample of respondents. The sample was instructed to indicate any problems respondents might have with the instructions or items. EG The questionnaire was designed to maintain the interest of the respondents and therefore the questions were kept as simple and concise as possible.
Questions of a sensitive nature were avoided and every effort was made to use the respondent's vocabulary. The questionnaire included the following types of questions: dichotomous, multiple choice with single answers, ranking of a set of factors and open-ended. A copy of the questionnaire can be seen in Appendix A. Students from different faculties were approached in an attempt to obtain different perspectives and then complete information.
The youth/student market constitutes a significant part of the current and potential customer base of mobile operators. Mobile operators need to capture their customers from an early age and the status-conscious and impressionable youngsters are easily convinced. Mobile operators have segmented their market in terms of youth with packages specifically aimed at the youth market e.g.
Acquiring customers at this early stage can minimize the possibility of switching to competing operators due to high switching costs, for example losing a number that everyone knows. Each respondent's questionnaire was numbered and the data entered into a spreadsheet program (Microsoft Excel) so that the results could be tabulated. Further analysis of each mobile operator's customer demographic profile was conducted to better understand each operator's youth customer base.
We maintained an ethical stance because the information provided by mobile operators was highly confidential. The final print run of the dissertations is limited and this will maintain the confidentiality promised to the cell companies.
CHAPTERS
RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Demographic Results
It must be an exaggeration that the respondents were students and therefore it is normal that the majority fall into the segments mentioned above.
GENERAL QUESTIONS Ownership of cell phone
Most of the respondents (92%) were mobile phone users and only 8% did not use mobile phones. This is an interesting phenomenon as 42% of respondents have a monthly income between 50 and 499 rand and 24% have an income between 500 and 999 rand. From this it can be concluded that while the monthly income of students is low, mobile phone ownership plays an important role. role in students' lives. 48% of respondents used Vodacom, 39% MTN and 13% CellC as their service provider.
Respondents were asked what the specific reason was for choosing a particular service provider [respondents were only asked to choose one service option]. 29% said it was because of cheap packages available, 21% that the service provider had good network coverage, 21% said it was a well-known service provider, 14% chose the specific service provider because they were referred to that service. provider of family or friends, 13% had no choice to choose and 2% chose that service provider because they had received a free handset [this only applies to contract options]. The majority of all respondents who have contracts (52.9%) have a monthly income of between R2000 and above.
For the majority of respondents (217), the most important factor was not having monthly bills, the second most important factor was that they know exactly how much they have to spend, the third factor was that it is easy to top up the appointment, the fourth factor was that there are no hidden costs, and the fifth and sixth factors were that there were no contractual obligations and no credit checks. The majority of respondents have Vodacom as their service provider (48.6%), closely followed by MTN with 38.7%. The main reason they chose this particular service provider was the cheap and reasonable package.
Most of the respondents had chosen the prepaid option because they don't have to worry about monthly bills and they know exactly how much they need to spend. This shows that Vodacom users are in a higher income bracket as they receive more income or allowance than the average respondent. The majority of all Vodacom respondents (93.6%) were prepaid users and only 6.3% were contract users.
It appears that there were more MTN contract users than Vodacom users with only 6.3% but Cell Chad 21.6% contract users. Compared to Vodacom respondents, MTN respondents spend significantly less on airtime, but this is probably because MTN respondents have much less disposable income than Vodacom respondents.
Race Comparisons
Service options comparisons
- Reasons For Choosing Cellular Operator
- Youth Customer Profile
- Recommendations
- Recommendations to Researchers
The results of the survey confirm that prepaid is the most popular option among Cape Technikon students. Mobile communications, in particular prepaid services, is positioned as a solution for the youth market and the results of the survey reflect the following factors that are important for mobile student users at Cape Technikon when making a choice between the contract and the prepaid service option. This can be highlighted as another major advantage of the prepaid service because you spend money only after purchasing calling credit.
Most students have incomes from R50 -R499. Airtime used on prepaid vouchers is generally between R20-R99 per month. The success of the prepaid system is evident among student users given the income constraints that students have to deal with. The demographic profiles of student cell phone users across the 3 cellular operators were quite different in terms of the racial groups captured by each cellularoperato~. It must be emphasized that these profiles are indicative of a small cross-section of the youth within.
5I,5%-Table 3 : Annex D]. The highest income category was between R50 and R499 and these students spent on average. Only 2% of the MTN customer base chose the contract option and this serves as proof of the huge popularity of the prepaid option among the youth. Cellular operators must adopt branding policies that include all of the above attributes if they want to capture a larger segment of the student/youth population.
Cell C has recently launched Cell Y which is specially targeted at the youth/student and this indicates the importance of the youth/student market in the prepaid sector. A criticism of the prepaid option is that its anonymity prevents cellular operators from having ongoing contact with these customers to try to convert them to postpaid subscribers. Media and promotional tools must be used appropriately to attract and convince the youth market of the benefits of cellular telephony, but the greater challenge for cellular operators is managing a customer relationship program.
The questionnaire should be administered among a fair distribution of the different racial groups so that clear demographic profiles of student cellular prepaid users can be established. By investing in appropriate research, the needs and wants of the student/youth market can be clearly defined, while increasing the ability to target them effectively.
2002) Virgin Mobile USA: beautiful young face with a nice black tip. http://web19.epnet.com/citation.asp. United States of America: Pearson Education Inc. http://web32.epnet.com/citation.asp. 1997) Mobile carriers use prepaid cards to attract new customers. New Orleans CityBusiness, September 6, 1997, Vol. http://web32.epnet.com/citation.asp. 2001) Planning, designing and reporting research.
APPENDIX A
- PREPAID
- GENDER
- RACE
- MONTHLY INCOME / ALLOWANCE
No monthly bills to earn Know exactly how much to spend No credit checks.
APPENDIXB
APPENDIXC
APPENDIXD
![Figure 2: The Product Life Cycle [Solomon & Stuart, 2003: 288]](https://thumb-ap.123doks.com/thumbv2/pubpdfnet/10631175.0/27.870.171.725.121.532/figure-product-life-cycle-solomon-amp-stuart-2003.webp)
