CUSTOMERS AWARENESS AND UTILIZATION OF MOBILE PHONE CONNECTION SERVICES IN RURAL

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1 CUSTOMERS AWARENESS AND UTILIZATION OF MOBILE PHONE CONNECTION SERVICES IN RURAL R. SATHIYAMOORTHY ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT, PONDICHERRY UNIVERSITY, COMMUNITY COLLEGE INTRODUCTION Consumer awareness plays a key role in customer decision making by increasing a potential or current customer s knowledge about a product, service or business, a healthy economic environment is established in which customers are informed and protected and business are accountable. According to the Longman Business English Dictionary, Consumer awarness is a term used to describe the awareness of a potential or current buyer about a particular product or company. The understanding by an individual of their rights as a consumer concerning available products and services being marketed and sold. The concept involves four categories including safety, choice, information and the right to be heard. Utilization is a process for monitoring the use, delivery and cost effectiveness of services. MOBILE PHONE SERVICES IN INDIA The Government of India recognizes that the provision of a world class telecommunication infrastructure and information is the key to rapid economic and social development of the country. It is critical not only for the development of the Information Technology industry, but also has widespread ramifications on the entire economy of the country. It is also anticipated that going forward, a major part of the GDP of the country will he contributed by this sector. Accordingly, it is of vital importance to the country that there be a comprehensive and forward looking telecommunication policy which creates frame work for the development of this country. CONSUMER SATISFACTION Marketing is important because, it is directed towards satisfaction of consumer needs and in this context, the consumer is the centre of attraction for which marketing is carried out, therefore in dealing with consumers, the marketing manager is dealing with a diverse, complex personality, whose likes, dislikes and style of living are hard to determine. Hence human 87

2 personalities are an enigma by themselves. If a company is going to effectively market, then it has to find out some needs of the consumer and accordingly exploit it. RURAL MARKETING Rural Marketing has often been defined in a narrower sense to include only the marketing of agricultural production and products. Related to agricultural activities like fertilizers, Pesticides, tractors, etc. Marketing of agricultural production has received adequate attention of policy makers, and central and state Governments. This has resulted in establishment of Regulated markets and cooperative marketing scenario. Today 72% of India lives in rural area in 6,38,000 villages, Not just the rural population is numerically large it is growing richer by the day. Ten consecutive good monsoons leading to pampers harvests, doubling of procurement price for paddy and wheat in the last decade, a four fold in crease in outlay for rural development from seventh to eleventh plan and change in lifestyle due to the proliferation of Television and cell phone had caused the rural boom. NEED AND IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY The present scenario of the rural consumers is giving more importance for easy, convenient and more comfortable way of communications. They don t like to waste their valuable time and also valuable relationship. The gap between the message sender and receiver are shortened by the latest way of communications. A cut-throat competition was exists in mobile phone service providers market. The customer of one service provider was quickly switchover to another service provider who fulfills their needs and expectations economically. In the market, variety of plans are introduced to attract the consumers. In this juncture, an attempt is made to study the customer awareness and utilization of mobile phone connection service in rural market. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The study on customer awareness is all about consumer. Each one of us buys and consumes goods and services in our life. Consumer awareness is very complex and is determined to a large extent by their social and psychological factors. Hence it is necessary for a marketing manager to properly understand the awareness of his customer before planning any marketing strategy otherwise he will lose his valuable customer. All the customers have different tastes, needs, likes and dislikes and adopt different behaviour patterns, while making purchase decisions. Similarly, if the customer gets satisfied with his purchase then it persuades him to buy the same product or get same service frequently. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY: 1) To study the customers awareness of mobile communication services. 2) To ascertain the level of satisfaction perceived in utilizing. 3) To suggest better ways and means to utilize the mobile communication services. 88

3 Sample The study was conducted in the rural areas. The sample respondents are belonging to different rural areas. Sample size consists of 825 respondents from difference mobile service users. The researcher adopted convenient sampling method for selection of respondents. Data collected were procurred systematically. Tools and Analysis The collected data were classified into suitable tabular forms for analysis and interpretation. Simple statistical tools like two-way classification tables, chi-square test were used. FINDINGS: An attempt has made to know about the residential area of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards mobile service. For this purpose of the study, residential area has been classified into three classification viz., urban semi-urban and rural. The sample consists 100 (12.1%) respondents belong to urban area, 267 (32.4%) respondents belong to semi-urban area and 458 (55.5%) respondents belong to rural area. The distribution of sample respondents according to residential area and level of satisfaction towards services offered by the mobile service provider are shown in the following table. TABLE NO. 1 RESIDENTIAL AREA AND LEVEL OF SATISFACTION S. No. of Ave Range Residential area % No. Respondents rage Min Max S.D 1. Urban Semi-urban Rural Total It is inferred from the above table that the level of satisfaction towards services offered by the mobile service provider perceived by the respondents who lived in urban area ranged between 57 and 83 with an average of It is followed by the respondents who lived in semi-urban area ranged between 58 and 88 with an average of On the other hand, the level of satisfaction towards services offered by the mobile service provider perceived by the respondents who lived in rural area ranged between 34 and 88 with an average of From the analysis, it inferred that the maximum level of satisfaction towards services offered by the mobile service provider perceived by the respondents who lived in urban area. In order to find the relationship between the residential area of the respondents and satisfaction, the following null hypothesis was framed and tested with the help of chi-square test and the result is shown in the following table. 89

4 H 0 : There is no significant relationship between residential area and level of H 1 : There is a significant relationship between residential area and level of TABLE NO. 2 RESIDENTIAL AREA AND LEVEL OF SATISFACTION (CHI-SQUARE TEST) Calculated Factor 2 Table Value D.F Remarks Value Residential Significant at 1% level area It is determined from the above table that the calculated chi-square value is greater than the table value and the result is significant at 1% level. Hence, the hypothesis, residential area of the respondents and level of satisfaction are not associated does not hold good. From the analysis, it is found that there is a close relationship between the residential area of the respondents and level of TABLE NO. 3 FREQUENCY OF RECHARGING PRE-PAID SCHEME AND LEVEL OF SATISFACTION S. Frequency of No. of Ave Range % No. recharging Respondents rage Min Max S.D 1. Less than 15 days to 30 days months Above 3 months Total It is identified from the above table that level of satisfaction towards services offered by the mobile service provider among the respondents who recharging for less than 15 days ranged between 34 and 88 with an average of The level of satisfaction among the respondents who recharging for 16 to 30 days ranged between 45 and 82 with an average of The level of satisfaction among the respondents who recharging for 1-3 months ranged between 36 and 88 with an average of The level of satisfaction among the respondents who recharging for above 3 months ranged between 50 and 83 with an average of It is found from the analysis that the respondents who recharging for above 3 months have perceived the maximum level of With a view to find the degree of association between the type of mobile connection and level of satisfaction, a two-way table was prepared and it is shown in the following table. 90

5 TABLE NO.4 TYPE OF MOBILE CONNECTION AND LEVEL OF SATISFACTION (TWO-WAY TABLE) S. Level of satisfaction Type of mobile connection No. Low Medium High 1. Prepaid (20.5) (60.3) (19.1) 2. Post paid (20.8) (25.0) (54.2) 3. Both (18.8) (43.8) (37.5) Total 769 Total It could be identified from the above table that the percentage of high level of satisfaction towards services offered by the mobile service provider was the highest (54.2%) among the post paid plan users and the same was the lowest (19.1%) among the pre paid plan users. The percentage of the medium level of satisfaction towards services offered by the mobile service provider was the highest (60.3%) among pre paid plan users and the lowest (25.0%) among post paid plan users. On the other hand, the percentage of low level of satisfaction towards services offered by the mobile service provider was the highest (20.8%) among the post paid plan users and the lowest (18.8%) among both prepaid and post paid plan users. CONCLUSION: From the study it is found that both (Prepaid and Post Paid) plan users have perceived the maximum level of satisfaction towards services offered by the mobile service provider in the study area. The result is proved by the Chi Squared Test of 5 percent level of significance. From the finding it observed that majority of the respondents are utilizing the prepaid schemes then post paid schemes because of building problem. 91