Internship Proposal 1

Introduction

GrameenPhone Ltd., the largest telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh,

received its operating license in November 1996 and started its service from March 26,
1997, the Independence Day of Bangladesh. Now, after 12 years of successful operations,
GrameenPhone is the largest mobile phone service provider in Bangladesh, with more
than 22.30 million subscribers as of October 2009. GrameenPhone provides services to
rural and urban customers across Bangladesh, where mobile telephony is acknowledged
as a significant driver of socio-economic development, both for individuals and the
nation.

As a degree requirement of Bachelors of Business Administration (BBA) at the School of

Business in North South University, this internship report is entitled as:
“Customers Attitude Towards Call Center Employees’ Knowledge Sharing
in the Customer Service Hotline of Grameenphone Ltd. as being the Largest
Telecommunication Service Provider in the Country”.

This is a three months long internship program at the Contact Center, Customer Service
Department of Commercial Division at Grameenphone Ltd. under the university faculty
instructor of Mr. Ahmed Shahriar Ferdous, School of Business, North South
University and the organizational supervision of Mrs. Shahin Akter, Officer, Contact
Center, Customer Service Department, Commercial Division, Grameenphone Ltd.

Objectives

The main objective of doing this research is to explore customers’ psychology, attitudes
and perception about the different services provided from the customer service call center
of Grameenphone Ltd. by the call center employees. From this research, I would like to
examine the end users opinion about the core job function of call center employees which
is knowledge sharing. This project will go through an extensive study of whether the
knowledge sharing of call center agents is really helping the customers to make better use
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of their mobile phone service and generating maximum revenue for the company or not.
This entire study will be conducted on the different types of mobile phone users situated
in Dhaka city and the focus will be narrowly on knowledge sharing of employees and
their consequences on customers.

Significance of the Study

In recent days, the telecom sector in Bangladesh is almost saturated. The growth rate is
almost stagnant for all the mobile operators. Now retaining the existing customer base
has become more crucial in the industry. This is the time where after sales customer
service touch points and call centers play a vital role. In the context of Bangladesh, most
of the mobile operators have their own customer service call centers from where
employees share knowledge with the inbound callers. My study is focused to find out
customer attitudes of these knowledge sharing and service delivery of call center
employees over the phone. This research will help the company and the customer service
department employees to better understand customers’ perception and attitudes towards
their service delivery process and its result. The outcomes of this study will help the
management of customer service department in Grameenphone to find out the lackings in
their current process of knowledge sharing in call center. It will also help them to
improve the service delivery process and become more customers centric.

Expected Findings or Hypothesis

 From the costumers end, I would like to find out their attitudes towards the
knowledge sharing activities of call center employees.
 Their experience of receiving service through customer service call center of
Grameenphone Ltd.
 Whether the money spent on calling the customer service hotline is worth the
service they receive or not. Their problem were solved with proper care and
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additional information received which helped them to more efficient use of their
mobile phone

Methodology

Primary data will be the prime source of information for this report as there are few
secondary sources available that could aid to this project. Primary information will be
collected through customer survey with structured questionnaire, in-depth interview with
customers of inbound callers as well as with employees of the company.
However some secondary data sources will also be used for the report like internet,
company inside information (non-confidential), information available from the regulatory
commission of Bangladesh, statistics published in different media etc. This secondary
information will aid to the report to a great extent as one of the objective of the report is
to analyze the company, the industry in which it is operating and its prospects.
The dependent variables will basically be the age group, the different income groups
and customers reasons for using mobile phone (business/students/fashion purposes). The
independent variables will be the customers’ opinion, attitude, perception and
suggestion on knowledge sharing by employees (based on some specific parameters).
Majority of the data collection will be done by face to face survey with structured
questionnaire and the statistical software SPSS will be used to analyze the collected data
from different angles such as graphical presentation crosstabs, t-test, z-test, correlation
and regression etc.

Limitations

 Currently Grameenphone is having a subscriber base of around 22.30 million. As

the research will be based on sample survey, there are some possibilities of
sampling error. Customers from different segments may not be proportionately
present in the sample.
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 Grameenphone, the country’s largest telecom service provider has its subscriber
in all 64 districts. Due to my job location and university attachment, it is not
possible to conduct a nationwide survey. So all the respondents will be from
Dhaka metropolitan arena. It is possible to have similar kind of attitude from
people residing in the same area as the core service of mobile telecommunication
is based on network coverage.
 The study will be conducted only among the customers who make call to
Grameenphone call center. But there are certain types of people who always
prefer to receive services from service delivery touch points rather than calling to
customer service hotline. So it will not be possible to analyze the attitudes of
those people who don’t make call to Grameenphone’s customer service call center
to receive services.
 The time limit for such an extensive project is also not sufficient. So many of the
important aspects of Grameenphone customer service will be overlooked in this
report.

Budget of the study

 Financial budget:

Work Costs (approximately)

Preparing questionnaire for sample size (150) and BDT 1500
conducting survey through visiting customers
Print out of draft and final report (approximately 200 BDT 2000
pages in total)
Others for conducting the research BDT 1000
Total BDT 4500

 Time budget:
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Work Time
Preparation Of Project Proposal 1 week
Preparation of questionnaire for research and get the 1 week
faculty supervisor’s approval
Collection of data (From secondary sources like internet, 2 weeks
company inside information and primary sources like
customers)
Analyzing the collected data 1 week
Preparation of draft report 2 week
Preparation of final report 1 week
Total 7 weeks

Request for Approval

I request your authorization to allow me to write my internship report on The

Grameenphone Ltd. on the above mentioned topic. I would happily acknowledge any
suggestions about my selection of the topic, overall arrangement of the paper, selection of
research materials and sources.

Approved By:

Mrs. Shahin Akter Mr. Ahmed Shahriar Ferdous

Officer, Lecturer
Contact Center School of Business
Customer Service Department North South University
Commercial Division
Grameenphone Ltd.