National School of Political Science and Public Administration

Faculty of Communication and Public Relations

MA Communication and advertising

Research Methods
Quantitative Module
Class Project

CRISTINA-ADRIANA RADOVENEANU

RAISA BRGREA

Table of Contents
1.

2.

Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 3
1.1.

Context ............................................................................................................................. 3

1.2.

Customer satisfaction ....................................................................................................... 3

1.3.

Customer Loyalty ............................................................................................................. 4

Methodology............................................................................................................................ 5
2.1.

Research question ............................................................................................................. 5

2.2.

Population investigated .................................................................................................... 6

2.3.

Method ............................................................................................................................. 6

3.

Questionnaire Design .............................................................................................................. 7

4.

References ............................................................................................................................. 11

1. Introduction

1.1.Context

The world of mobile networks is changing rapidly all over the world. To develop more customer
centric mindsets, operators have to bring to the market a really diverse portfolio of products and services
which should provide the overall customer experience the operator wants to provide.
The importance of customer satisfaction and loyalty has been acknowledged over the past two
decades in the marketing literature which emphasizes the importance of responding to changing
customers needs and preferences for the long term success of a company. Studies have shown that higher
customer satisfaction can lead to a stronger competitive position which will result in higher market share,
profitability, reduced price elasticity, lower business cost, reduced failure cost and mitigated cost of
attracting new customers.1 Therefore, managers consider customer satisfaction as being a strategic
imperative due to its benefits of developing customer loyalty
influence of customer satisfaction on loyalty.

while marketing scholars emphasize the

Trying to find a connection between customer satisfaction and loyalty, we found several studies
which came to the result that the two concepts are positively correlated. Nevertheless, while there is a
great deal of research examining the linkages between satisfaction and loyalty, studies investigating this
linkage in the context of mobile telecommunications is limited.4
Taking into consideration the statements above, we considered to be relevant conducting a
research study which investigates the relation between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the
context of mobile telecommunication services on the Romanian market.

In the following sections we will define the two variables of our research, customer
satisfaction and customer loyalty, and the way they will be used in the present study.

1.2.Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction has been defined in various ways. According to Gustafsson et all
(2005) customer satisfaction is defined as a customers overall evaluation of the performance of
an offering to date. This evaluation is build over time and it typically mediates the effects of
1

(Bayraktar, Tatoglu, Turkyilmaz, & Delen, 2012)

(Aksoy, Buoye, Aksoy, Larivire, & Keiningham, 2013)
3
(Gustafsson, Johnson, & Roo, 2005)
4
(Aksoy, Buoye, Aksoy, Larivire, & Keiningham, 2013)
2

product quality, service quality, and price or payment equity on loyalty. 5 Another study
conducted in 2012 states that the high-level conceptualization that appears to have gained the
widest acceptance sees customer satisfaction as customers post-purchase evaluation of a product
or service.6.
In the present study, we aim to measure the customer satisfaction of the users of a
telecommunication mobile company regarding only the services that the company provides. For
this reason, we are not interested in measuring the level of satisfaction towards the companys
products. The dimensions of customer satisfaction that we are going to focus on consist in
customer service, service quality and price and package variety. Regarding the customer service,
what we are going to analyze is the perceived general attitudes of the companys representatives
in the users opinion, by measuring their level of satisfaction towards: the competence of the
representatives (knowledge regarding the subject they are asked about), the amount of time
required for solving the certain problem, the amount of time the users had to wait in order to get
in touch with a representative and the overall attitude of the representative. Moving on to service
quality, what we aim to investigate are the signal reception quality and coverage and the billing
accuracy. The last dimension we are going to focus on concerns price and package variety. By
price and package variety we want to determine if the mobile service subscribers are content
with the features they receive for the amount of money monthly paid.

1.3.Customer Loyalty
Customer loyalty expresses an intended behavior related to the service or the company. It
can be seen through three conceptual perspectives according to Mokhtar et all. (2011) which are: the
behavioral perspective, the attitudinal perspective and the composite perspective. The behavioral

perspective, purchase loyalty, strictly looks at repeat purchase behavior and is based on the
customer's purchase history. The emphasis is on past -rather than on- future actions. Moreover,
no other loyal behavioral actions such as price tolerance, word of mouth, or complaint behavior
can be interpreted. Concentrating on the behavioral aspect of loyalty could overestimate true
loyalty. The attitudinal perspective, in contrast, allows gain in supplemental understanding of
loyal behavior. The customer loyalty is approached as an attitudinal construct. An attitude
5
6

(Gustafsson, Johnson, & Roo, 2005)

(Bayraktar, Tatoglu, Turkyilmaz, & Delen, 2012)

denotes the degree to which a consumer's disposition towards a service is favorably inclined.
This inclination is reflected by activities such as the customers recommending service providers
to other consumers or their commitment to repatronize a preferred service provider. Based on a
favorable attitude towards a service provider, customers may develop preference loyalty.
Lastly, the composite perspective combines attitudinal and behavioral definitions of loyalty. The
composite perspective might be considered as an alternative to affective loyalty since using both
attitude and behavior in a loyalty definition arguably increases the predictive power of loyalty. 7
Other authors measured customer loyalty for mobile phone companies by the repurchase
intention, the price tolerance and the intention to recommend those products or services to other
people.8
In our study we are going to approach the composite perspective since it is
demonstrated9to measure more accurately the concept were interested in. In order to do this, we
want to evaluate the following behaviors and attitudes: how likely is for the customer to renew
his contract, how likely it is that the customer changes patronage, how likely is for the customer
to provide positive word-of-mouth and how likely is for the user to express dissatisfactions
regarding the company directly to it.

2. Methodology

2.1.Research question
Through this study we aim to determine the impact that customer satisfaction has on the
loyalty level of the Orange telecommunication service customers. Revising the literature
concerning our topic we discovered that several authors have found a positive correlation
between customer satisfaction and loyalty10 which led us to the following hypothesis:
A high level of customer satisfaction leads to an increased customer loyalty.

(Mokhtar, Maiyaki, & Noor, 2011)

(Bayraktar, Tatoglu, Turkyilmaz, & Delen, 2012)
9
(Mokhtar, Maiyaki, & Noor, 2011)
10
(Mokhtar, Maiyaki, & Noor, 2011)
8

2.2.Population investigated
The population investigated consists of the Orange telecommunication companys customers who
have at least one year of subscription.

2.3.Method
In order to test our hypothesis, we built a questionnaire aiming to measure our key concepts. The
instrument consists of three main sections: demographics, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The
customer satisfaction section is divided into three sub-sections: customer services, services quality and
price and package variety.
The demographics section consists of five items regarding gender, area, age, monthly income and
market segment (Q1 to Q5). The next section (customer satisfaction) consists of nine items; four of them
address the customer services component (Q6 to Q9), three of them asses the way customers perceive the
quality of the companys services (Q10 to Q12) and the last two of them measure the level of satisfaction
towards the price and package features offered to the subscribers (Q13 and Q14). The last section
(customer loyalty) consists of a total of four questions. (Q15 to Q18).
To gather data for this research study, we are going to access the Orange telecommunication
companys database in order to collect the e-mails of all of the subscribers who have at least one year of
subscription and send them the questionnaire via e-mail.

3. Questionnaire Design
Orange Company wants to thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve you. We
kindly ask you to take a few minutes and answer the following questions and tell us about the
service you have received so far from our company. Our aim is to constantly improve our
services and to serve our clients better.
Sincerely,
Orange Romania
1. What is your gender?
a. Female
b. Male

2. Please specify the area you live in:

a. Rural area
b. Urban area

3. Please specify your age:

..

4. What is your monthly net income?

a. Less than 1000 Ron
b. Between 1000 2500 Ron
c. Over 2500 Ron

5. Which market segment do you belong to?

a. Student
b. Service Personnel (public and private)
c. Self employed professional
d. Business person
e. Retired person
f. Other (please specify): ..

Please select the answer which is the most representative for your experience with
Orange telecommunication company. You can only select one answer.

6. When trying to contact out Customer Service department, how long did you have to wait
before speaking to a representative?
1

Very long

Quite long

About average

Quite short

Very short

7. When talking to our representatives, how competent in regard to their level of knowledge
concerning your problem did they seem?
1

Very

Incompetent

Neither

Competent

Very

incompetent

incompetent nor

competent

competent

8. When addressing our representatives in regard to a certain problem, how long did it take
for your problem to be solved?
1

Problem was

Long time

Neither long

Short time

Immediate

not solved

nor short

resolution

9. How satisfied were you by the overall attitude of the representatives you got in touch
with?
1

Very

Quite

Neutral

Quite satisfied

Very satisfied

unsatisfied

unsatisfied

Please rate the following statements

10. I am content with the signal reception quality of the Orange telecommunication company.
1

Strongly

Disagree

Neutral

Agree

Strongly agree

disagree

11. I am content with the national coverage provided by Orange telecommunication

company.
1

Strongly

Disagree

Neutral

Agree

Strongly agree

disagree

12. How would you rate the monthly accuracy of your billings (valid information about your
billings)?
1

Very poor

Poor

Neutral

Accurate

Very accurate

Please select the answer which is the most representative for your experience with
Orange telecommunication company. You can only select one answer.
13. How satisfied are you with the features included in the monthly package?
1

Very

Quite

Neutral

Quite satisfied

Very satisfied

unsatisfied

unsatisfied

Please rate the following statement:

14. For all the features included in my Orange telecommunication package, I consider that I
spend a fair amount of money.
1

Strongly

Disagree

Neutral

Agree

Strongly agree

disagree

Please select the answer which is the most representative for your experience with
Orange telecommunication company. You can only select one answer.
15. How likely is it for you to renew your contract with Orange telecommunication company
after your current subscription expires?
1

Very unlikely

Unlikely

Neutral

Likely

Very likely

16. How likely are you to switch to other phone service providers?
1

Very unlikely

Unlikely

Neutral

Likely

Very likely

17. How likely are you to provide positive work of mouth about Orange telecommunication
company?
1

Very unlikely

Unlikely

Neutral

Likely

Very likely

18. How likely are you to express your dissatisfaction regarding Orange telecommunication
company by giving direct feedback (getting in touch with a representative)?
1

Very unlikely

Unlikely

Neutral

Likely

Very likely

10

4. References

Aksoy, L., Buoye, A., Aksoy, P., Larivire, B., & Keiningham, T. L. (2013). A cross-national
investigation of the satisfaction and loyalty linkage for mobile telecommunications services
across eight countries. Journal of Interactive Marketing , 74-82.
Bayraktar, E., Tatoglu, E., Turkyilmaz, A., & Delen, S. (2012). Measuring the efficiency of
customer satisfaction and loyalty for mobile phone brands with DEA. Expert Systems with
Applications , 99-106.
Gustafsson, A., Johnson, M. D., & Roo, I. (2005). The Effects of Customer Satisfaction,
Relationship Commitment Dimensions, and Triggers on Customer Retention. Journal of
Marketing , 210-218.
Mokhtar, S. S., Maiyaki, A. A., & Noor, N. (2011). The Relationship Between Service Quality
and Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty in Malaysian Mobile Communication Industry. School
of Doctoral Studies (European Union) Journal , 32-38.

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