CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN THE MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATION INDUSTRY - AN EMPIRICAL STUDY WITH FOCUS ON GUJARAT STATE

Customer satisfaction is a fundamental marketing construct in the last three decades. In the past, it was unpopular and unaccepted concept because companies thought it was more important to gain new customers than retain the existing ones. However, in this present decade, companies have gained better understanding of the importance of customer satisfaction (especially service producing companies) and adopted it as a high priority operational goal. This study aimed at investigation the overall customer satisfaction of the mobile telecoms industry in Gujarat, factors influencing satisfaction and the relationship between satisfaction and demographics. The results obtained in this research indicated that 57% of the respondents were satisfied and 5% highly satisfied. The combination of network quality, billing, validity period and customer support (mobile services attributes) showed strong relationship with satisfaction while age, gender, location and employment variables showed weak relationship.