Consumer’s Satisfaction Level about Grameen Phone’s (GP) Service in Bangladesh: A Case Study on Perception Analysis

Grameenphone (GP) is the leader of Bangladesh telecommunication industry. Grameenphone (GP) not only provides voice service but also offers a number of value added services, in each on both a prepaid and contract bases. Service network, 3G, customer care, physical facilities, billing cost, information service, mobile banking, GP offers and studyline are included in the value added services. Our study discloses the customer's reaction about GPs services. This study investigates why customers are satisfied the GPs existing services and why they are not satisfied and their reaction about GPs services. The study recommends the customers approach and how Grameenphone (GP) retains its customers as a result gradually converted to the loyal customer with competing others operators in the marketplace. Journal of Business & Financial Affairs J o u r n a l o f B usi ness & Finncial Af f a i r s ISSN: 2167-0234 Citation: Ullah A, Islam T, Rahman M (2017) Consumer’s Satisfaction Level about Grameen Phone’s (GP) Service in Bangladesh: A Case Study on Perception Analysis. J Bus Fin Aff 6: 258. doi: 10.4172/2167-0234.1000258


Introduction
By connecting 56.300 million subscribers, 15.7 million Internet subscribers and more than 43 thousand shareholders as of July 2016, giving people access to the internet and digital services, Grameenphone is enabling people to drive business, improve their lives and contribute to building a better future for society [1], the largest cellular operator in the country is GP. GP has nationwide 345,263 point of sales as a result it can easily serve the customer service to their optimal customers. Grameenphone offers innovative services in line with socio-economic conditions of Bangladesh. In 2006, Grameenphone introduced Healthline, a 24 h medical call centre manned by licensed physicians, Mobicash, for electronic purchase of train and lottery tickets and BillPay, which allows utility bill payments to be made by mobile phone. "Studyline", a call centre based service providing education related information, was launched in October 2009. Grameenphone has established approximately 500 Community Information Centers which aim to bring affordable Internet access and other information based services to people in rural areas of Bangladesh. In 2009, Grameenphone introduced branded plug and play USB Internet access modems and branded handsets at a very affordable price. Grameenphone won the GSMA Global Mobile Award for "Best use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development" for its Health Line. Grameenphone also won the GSMA "Green Mobile Award" jointly with Huawei Technologies for building an environment friendly network in Bangladesh [1].
The vision of Grameenphone is to provide the power of digital communication, enabling everyone to improve their lives, build societies and secure a better future for all. The mission of Grameenphone is to help existing customers get the full benefit of being connected. Our success is measured by how passionately they promote us. Everything which is produced by GP should be easy to understand and use. It should always remember that its try to make customers' lives easier. The work of GP should do perfectly. If it doesn't, GP put things right. GP try to delivery, not over-promising. It believes about actions, not words and tries to creative. We bring energy and imagination to our work. Everything GP produce should look fresh and modern. It acknowledges and respect local cultures. GP want to be a part of local all at generic level [5]. Customer service is a system of activities that comprises customer support systems, complaint processing, speed of complaint processing, ease of reporting complaint and friendliness when reporting complaint [6]. Many studies have found a direct positive link between service quality perceptions and customer behavioral intensions [7]. According to Turel and Sereko [8] improved customer services are the focal point of the telecom service providers for social as well as for economic reasons. From a social view point, services should be available to the customers on reasonable terms.

Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of customers, or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with a firm, its products, or its services (ratings) exceeds specified satisfaction goals" [9].
Some other researchers suggest that customer satisfaction can be defined at two levels [10][11][12]. They are transaction-specific satisfaction and overall satisfaction (holistic). Transaction-specific satisfaction refers to the consumer's satisfaction with a discrete service encounter. It based on the individual level, they judgment customer satisfaction on a specific purchase occasion. Overall satisfaction refers to the consumer's overall subjective post-consumption evaluative judgment based on all encounters and experiences with particular organization. Like Wang, Yonggui et al. [13] said that the overall satisfaction is more fundamental and useful than transaction-specific consumer satisfaction in predicting subsequent consumer behaviors and a firm's past, present and future performance. Satisfaction may result from a very simple or a complex process involving extensive cognitive, affective and other undiscovered psychological and physiological dynamics [14]. Comparing the definitions of satisfaction, it can be found that satisfaction is stated to be a relative concept always judged in relation to a standard [15].

Value added services
A value-added service (VAS) is a popular telecommunications industry term for non-core services, or in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions. However, it can be used in any service industry, for services available at little or no cost, to promote their primary business. In the telecommunications industry, valueadded services add value to the standard service offering, spurring the subscriber to use their phone more and allowing the operator to drive up their ARPU. For mobile phones, technologies like SMS, MMS and data access were historically usually considered value-added services, but in recent years SMS, MMS and data access have more and more become core services, and VAS therefore has begun to exclude those services.
Instant messaging, pay for me SMS, miss call alert, call block, mobile email, Facebook/twitter, voice SMS, voice mail, SMS, mms, voice chat, SMS chat, online mobile games, welcome tune, icche tune, music radio, video store , audio-video content, news alert, job alert, sports alert, election information, health tips, education tips matrimonial service, religious service, muktijuddho portal (SMS service), entertainment box, downloadable content infotainment, quick search, and business tune.

Customer value and brand image
Babin et al. [16] defined customer value as "value is a customer's perception of the subjective worth of some activity or object considering all net benefits and costs of consumption". In this research work, the applicable consumption act is the complete services received from Grameenphone. According to the Chang and Wildt [17], the perceived product quality will definitely effects brand value, whereas the price would harmfully influence the brand value. Rationally, higher product quality is not a precondition for brand value since a decrease in product quality can be counterbalance by lesser total price. Nevertheless, Andreassen and Lindestad [18] and Cronin et al. [19] research work showed a positive association between product quality and brand value.
Bitner [20] evaluated that brand image is an additional significant feature in the whole service assessment. Brand image is an acuity of firm detained in customer reminiscence and works as a sieve which influences the insight of the process of the firm [21,22]. Fazio and Zanna [23] find that the service assessments are the important reason of brand image according to the attitude model.

Conceptualization of hypotheses
For extensive review of literature the following hypotheses have been developed to examine the investigation for the purpose of determining customer satisfaction level about Grameenphone's (GP) service in Bangladesh.

Materials and Methods
It is descriptive research and designed to examine hypotheses. However, the main purpose of the study is to test the customer reaction GP's existing services factors leading to the customer satisfaction and loyalty. The hypotheses have been drawn based on the literature review and the empirical tests have been deployed for explaining the reaction GP's existing services and different variables. For collecting data the structured questionnaire sampling procedure has been applied. The survey is conducted during January 2014 to May 2015 and total 200 numbers of Grameenphone users at Pabna University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh at the graduate level has been taken for this study. This study is depended on raw data originating from a survey. A constructed questionnaire has developed for this purpose. Excepting the questions regarding demographic characteristics and user's value added service interface of the respondents and the issues relating to customers reaction, measured and investigated through 5 point Scale standardized by Brayfield and Rothe [24]. The scale consists of 71 statements, for each statement have five options/ points such as strongly agree-5, agree-4, undecided-3, disagree-2, and strongly disagree-1. For statistical analysis SPSS Statistics software package version 17 is used. Reliability of data has been measured by using the Cronbach alpha [25]. Cronbach alpha was 0.910. Alpha is higher than that is suggested by Nunnally and therefore data collected can be considered reliable [26].

Respondent's demographic
The questionnaires were distributed to the users (n=200) of Grameenphone among them 66.5% respondents thoroughly use GP, 17.0% users were Banglalink users, 6.0% users were Robi, 2.25% users were Airtel, 2.0% were Taletalk, 6.0% were Citycell users who currently use GP service. Among the respondents, 76.5% users use multiple operators' service and 23.5% use only the GP service. 33.5% users use GP below 3 years, 47.0% respondents use within 3-6 years, 29.5% use for 6 years and above. Respondents below 30 years using GP are 100%. 65.0% respondent's monthly expense below Tk 500, 27.0% incurs expense within Tk. 500-1000 and 8.0% respondents have above Tk 1000 monthly expense. All of the respondent's have bachelor degree comprises 100%. 100% respondents are student. 76.0% Male and 24.0% are Female respondents (Table 1).

Chi-square tests for customer reaction assessment
Opinion has been served in respect to satisfaction with GP's billing cost among two hundred (200) respondents. Among the respondent 18.5 % strongly disagreed, 31% disagreed, 14% remained undecided, 29.5% agreed, and 7% strongly agreed with Chi-Square value 41.850 a (df=4) with Asymp. Sig. =.000. Therefore, it can be concluded that customers' reaction is negative impact or they are not satisfied about GP's billing cost (Tables 2 and 3).
Opinion has been served in respect to satisfaction with GP's customer care service among two hundred (200) respondents. Among the respondent 8.5% strongly disagreed, 18.5% disagreed, 13.5% remained undecided, 43% agreed, and 16.5% strongly agreed with Chi-Square value 71.800 a (df=4) with Asymp. Sig. =.000. Therefore, it can be concluded that customers' reaction is positive or they are satisfied about GP's customer care service (Tables 4 and 5).
Opinion has been served in respect to satisfaction with GP's network among two hundred (200) respondents. Among the respondent 10.5% strongly disagreed, 15% disagreed, 9.5% remained undecided, 42.5% agreed, and 22.5% strongly agreed with Chi-Square value 73.800 a (df=4) with Asymp. Sig.=.000. Therefore, it can be concluded that customers' reaction is positive or they are satisfied about GP's network (Tables 6  and 7).
Opinion has been served in respect to satisfaction with GP's 3G service among two hundred (200) respondents. Among the respondent 12% strongly disagreed, 24% disagreed, 19% remained undecided, 35% agreed, and 10% strongly agreed with Chi-Square value 40.600 a (df=4) with Asymp. Sig. =.000. Therefore, it can be concluded that customers' reaction is positive or they are satisfied about GP's 3G service (Tables 8 and 9).
Opinion has been served in respect to satisfaction with GP's mobile banking platform among two hundred (200) respondents. Among the respondent 8.5% strongly disagreed, 15% disagreed, 14% remained undecided, 44.5% agreed, and 18% strongly agreed with Chi-Square value 79.750 a (df=4) with Asymp. Sig. =.000. Therefore, it can be concluded that customers' reaction is positive or they are satisfied about GP's mobile banking platform (Tables 10 and 11).     Asymp. Sig. .000 a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency is 40.0.     Opinion has been served in respect to satisfaction with GP's information service among two hundred (200) respondents. Among the respondent 11% strongly disagreed, 16.5% disagreed, 15.5% remained undecided, 44.5% agreed, and 12.5% strongly agreed with Chi-Square value 77.000 a (df=4) with Asymp. Sig. =.000. Therefore, it can be concluded that customers' reaction is positive or they are satisfied about GP's information service (Tables 12 and 13).
Opinion has been served in respect to satisfaction with GP's physical facilities among two hundred (200) respondents. Among the respondent 10% strongly disagreed, 25.5% disagreed, 20.5% remained undecided, 34% agreed, and 10% strongly agreed with Chi-Square value 42.650 a (df=4) with Asymp. Sig. =.000. Therefore, it can be concluded that customers' reaction is positive or they are satisfied about GP's physical facilities (Tables 14 and 15).

Hypotheses testing
According to the analysis of Chi-Square Tests we can go to conclusion of hypotheses test-in Table 16.

Recommendations and Conclusions
Grameenphone try to achieve optimal objective or goal it must be considered customer reaction and meet up their satisfaction. To ensure GP's goal as well as retain existing customer and capture new prospects it must be served the better services match with customers expectation due to customers are the king of market. If customer reaction is positive or favorable obviously it leads the GP's better position in the marketplace. GP try to provide better quality product performance to mesh with customer's desire in mind and satisfied customer become a loyal customer of Grameenphone who are the advocate of the organization. If customer reaction is not positive and GP can't consider the customer perception automatically they will not continue of using GP's service ultimately goes to others operator. It should be considered the customer reaction because the prosperity of Grameenphone depends upon the customer satisfaction.
• Customer reaction about GP's billing cost is negative or not      a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency is 40.0. Asymp. Sig. .000 a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency is 40.0. a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency is 40.0.     favorable, so Grameenphone reset its billing cost which is matched with satisfactory level of customers.

•
Customer reaction about GP's customer care service is favorable but not strongly agrees, so Grameenphone try to serve better customer care service for retaining existing customers and capture new customers.
• Customer reaction about GP's network is positive but not strongly agrees, so GP try to improve its network system.
• Customer reaction about GP's 3G service is positive but not strongly agrees, so Grameenphone serve the high speed of 3G service • Customer reaction about GP's mobile banking service is favorable but not strongly agrees, so Grameenphone try to develop its mobile banking service.
• Customer reaction about GP's information service is positive but not strongly agrees, so Grameenphone try to deliver information services which are needed by customers.
• Customer reaction about GP's physical facilities is positive but not strongly agrees, so Grameenphone try to set up available physical facilities to serve the existing and optimum customers.