Published On: 2013-10-29

October 29,2013-Transforming Experiences Ericsson ConsumerLab’s India study gives a detailed analysis of Indian consumers’ expectations from their mobile operators. The studyranks 12 different service industries including mobile operators on nine performance attributes, including the ability to quickly solve problems, ease of making payments, and innovation. The study also focuses on touch-points that operators can address to transform consumer satisfaction and loyalty. The survey represents the opinions of 100m urban Indian mobile consumers.

Resolving problems quickly has the maximum impact on driving consumer satisfaction across all industries. The benchmarking analysis revealed that airlines, online shopping, and fast food industries were ranked high by consumers on overall consumer experience offered due to transparency, punctuality, and innovation.Mobile operators are comparatively behind on such service expectations.

The report highlights areas that operators can focus on to deliver a superior consumer experience. “Findings across four markets (US, India, Brazil and Russia)customer service as an important touch point to drive consumer satisfaction.” said Ericsson’s Region India Head, Chris Houghton.  “For India, initial purchase experience and customer service emerged as priority touch points.” One in three urban mobile users claim they do not find mobile plans that best suit their usage patterns, and 85% rate quick activation of services as very important.  

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. “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. Poor customer service,    network or mobile internet performance accounts for half of the issues faced by    mobile users who are looking to switch operators.

To retain smartphone users, operators must fulfill basic needs such as high accuracy in billing/charging, high quality network performance and delighters such as assured mobile internet speeds, rewards, and loyalty programs. All of these factors will increase satisfaction proportionately.    

Additionally, operators must equip customer care executives with the tools needed to improve service delivery. Highlighting the need for transformation in customer service, 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. Over 77% 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 long hold times experienced when calling mobile operators’ customer care centers is often because 40% of agents claim they have to switch between four screens to solve a single query.

A quarter of urban mobile users are currently facing issues with their operator. However, on average, just under half of all problems are relayed back to the operator. The impact of a poor experience has 47% of consumers thinking of switching operators.

NOTES TO EDITORS
About the report:
The report: Transforming Experiences Transforming Experiences Infograph View Mobile Data Infograph

Ericsson ConsumerLab’s Transforming Experience’ India study was carried out in India between February-April 2013. Consumers owning mobile phones in the age group of 15-50 years were interviewed.  Nine group discussions and 4003 face to face interviews were conducted across 16 urban cities. Face to face interviews were also carried out with 200 customer care agents manning call centers for mobile operators across 8 Indian cities. Ericsson ConsumerLab also mined social media data and sifted over 250 million tweets and 1.8 million posts across Facebook, Twitter, blogs and complaint forums to identify 100,000 key conversations on mobile broadband experience among Indian online users starting June 2011-Jan 2013. The survey is representative of the views and opinions of 100 million urban mobile consumers.

Ericsson ConsumerLab – The voice of the consumer: Ericsson ConsumerLab   has close to 20 years’ experience of studying people’s behaviors and values, including the way they act and think about ICT products and services. Ericsson ConsumerLab provides unique insights on market and consumer trends. Ericsson ConsumerLab gains its knowledge through a global consumer research program based on interviews with 100,000 individuals each year, in more than 40 countries and 15 megacities –   statistically representing the views of 1.1 billion people. All ConsumerLab reports   can be found at www.ericsson.com/consumerlab

About Ericsson: Download high-resolution photos and broadcast-quality video at www.ericsson.com/press Ericsson is a world-leading provider of communications technology and services. We are enabling the Networked Society with efficient  real-time solutions that allow us all to study, work and live our lives more freely, in sustainable societies around the world. Our offering comprises services, software and infrastructure within Information and Communications Technology for telecom   operators and other industries. Today 40 percent of the world's mobile traffic goes through Ericsson networks and we support customers’ networks servicing more than 2.5 billion subscriptions.  We are more than 110,000 people working with customers in more than 180 countries. Founded in 1876, Ericsson is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2012 the company’s net sales were SEK 227.8 billion (USD 33.8 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ, New York stock exchanges.
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