ACE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOL

MATRICULATION NUMBER: 16010971

Subject: Advertising and Marketing Communication

Title: A Brief Analysis of WorldLink Communication.

Module Facilitator: Akshar Nepal

Prepared by: Ronisha Shrestha

8th Semester

Word count: 3369

Contents
Executive Summary..................................................................................................................... 1
1. Introduction........................................................................................................................... 2
Company Profile....................................................................................................................... 2
WorldLink’s Market Segmentation............................................................................................3
WorldLink’s Brand Positioning and Brand Awareness..............................................................3
2. Current Analysis................................................................................................................... 5
WorldLink’s Customer Analysis................................................................................................5
1. Trends and Needs:........................................................................................................5
2. Motivation:..................................................................................................................... 5
3. Perception:.................................................................................................................... 5
4. Behavior:....................................................................................................................... 6
Competitor Analysis................................................................................................................. 6
WorldLink’s marketing communication failure..........................................................................6
Product................................................................................................................................. 7
1. Available Packages:...................................................................................................7
2. Quality of Internet:......................................................................................................7
3. NetTV:........................................................................................................................ 7
4. Go Discount App:.......................................................................................................7
Place.................................................................................................................................... 8
1. Website Information:..................................................................................................8
2. Website User’s Experience:.......................................................................................8
3. Customer Support:.....................................................................................................8
3. Alternative Marketing Communication..................................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 10
Reference.................................................................................................................................. 12
Executive Summary

WorldLink is Nepal’s largest internet and network service provider renowned company. The
study is done to analyze the marketing communication of WorldLink in the current scenario. The
company has been promoting and marketing its services and products continuously through
various advertising resources. Though the advertising is done heavily there are still few
marketing failures that the company is facing. NetTv and Go Discount are few new services of
WorldLink and the users are not very well aware of it. The information and knowledge about the
service are not very clear to understand by its customers. WorldLink also promotes a slogan
“Chitto Vanekai WorldLink” and the company is not effectively using its slogan. The customers
are facing different issues and the quality of internet speed is also disappointing. Being one of
the most reputed companies in the market the company still fails to update certain important
information on its websites which creates negative customer’s experience while visiting the
company’s website.

Further, the paper provides some of the findings and suggestions to improve the available
services. With the increasing competition in the market, the company should work on its failures
and improve its communication factor to retain and gain new customers. WorldLink should make
a few changes and updates on its services and products to run in the long term business market.
Thus, enhancing the system can help the company remain as one of the leading Internet Service
Providers (ISP) of the nation with better customer retention results.

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 WORLDLINK

1. Introduction

Advertisement is derived from the Latin word “Advertere” and over the period of time
advertising has become the key to success for many businesses. Advertising is the
comprehensive and direct communication that promotes the company to the customers, educates
people with an interest in taking action, educating them about the product and services, and
offers motivation while conveying special promotions (Parente and Hutchinson, 1996).
However, there is a difference between how you advertise and market your product (Delorme
and Reid, 1999). Marketing can be described as ‘the process of planning, selling, promoting and
distributing concepts, products, and services to establish commerce and achieve individual and
organizational objectives (Gundlach, 2007).

By recognizing the communications culture of an individual, organizations aim to create and

deliver messages for their established stakeholder groups, before analyzing the feedback and
acting on them. They motivate individuals to deliver attitude-based and behavioral answers by
conveying signals of significant value (Pickton and Broderick, 2001).

Company Profile

WorldLink was founded in September 1995 with the aim of providing Internet and IT services in
all places of Nepal by its present Chairman and Managing Director, Dileep Agrawal. WorldLink
is Nepal’s largest Internet and Network Service Provider, and one of the leading IT firms.
WorldLink linked to the Internet via a direct satellite uplink through its own VSAT terminal
from September 1999 to June 2008, thereby totally bypassing Nepal Telecommunication
Company, the local PTT (WorldLink, 1996a). WorldLink has grown over the last 20 years from
a small company to a large and prosperous organization with skilled staff and a broad consumer
base. The organization has established itself as a full IT service provider rather than just an ISP,
through its collaboration with WorldLink Technologies Pvt. Ltd., offering services such as
internet access, network management, and consultancy, web hosting and creation, hardware sales
and maintenance, and software engineering and system integration. It operates the country’s one
of the finest and largest fiber backbone and access networks serving 63 districts providing
services such as high-speed Internet up to 100 Mbps along with IPTV HD services (WorldLink,
1996b). It is the country’s leading information technology company.

The mission and vision of WorldLink are:

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Vision: “To connect everyone, anywhere, all the time.”

Mission: “ Enrich the lives of our customers through world-class service.”

WorldLink’s Market Segmentation

WorldLink engages the entire market strategy which is strengthened by one of its slogans “Chitto
Vanekai WorldLink”. The slogan reflects the company’s promises to provide fast services all
over Nepal. To account for all segments it cleverly categorizes the item into groups.

The groups are as follows:

● Fiber to Home (FTH):

WorldLink’s Fiber to home (FTH) products are targeted for families with 3 - 5 members. This
service is suitable for those enterprise clients who need a dedicated internet service with a high
uptime guarantee of 99.9%. Lower middle class and high-class groups are targeted for FTH
products with various ranges of speed.

● Virtual Private Network Service:

Similarly, for SME enterprise groups to INGO and Government organizations, vast speed of
service is provided by WorldLink. As these organizations consist of a large number of people so,
separate speed and service are provided to the organizations. While customer segmentation these
features and products are kept in mind for providing better and efficient services. (The Toronto
Egotist 2011)

WorldLink’s Brand Positioning and Brand Awareness

Facilitating Wi-Fi in a house is moreover a middle-class family trend, for which WorldLink
subscription is a status. The main focused groups of WorldLink are small and medium-sized
businesses (SME), INGO, NGOs, and Government offices. The company has positioned itself
very well as a brand than its competitors for customers who require value for money as well as
the fastest internet service for daily lives (Luo and Homburg, 2007). WorldLink offers high-
quality services such as NETTV HD packages, internet connectivity through fiber-to-home
(FTH) technology, leased links in the commercial financial sector with innovative technologies
that offer high accessibility, quick access, and understanding. Thus, by providing an after-sale
service and support to its customers the company can strengthen its brand positioning (Keller et
al, 2011).

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Brand awareness helps the company to get into the consideration set when the consumer is
planning his or her purchase (Heinonen, 2011). The marketing cost can be reduced if there are
high loyal customers of the company. The customers add up new products and services in the
existing subscription line. For example, More than 20, 00,000 subscribers in Nepal add up
NETTV from existing subscribers. Fat Internet speed is the positive perception of the service
which gives an extra edge over the actual features of the product. WorldLink has a strong
partnership with the B2B networks and the finance, insurance, and INGO industries. It enhances
its trademark through service quality.

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 2. Current Analysis

WorldLink’s Customer Analysis

In the current situation, WorldLink uses the perspective of customer relationship management to
analyze customer behavior. The analysis helps to differentiate consumers across customer
segmentation, monitors customer shifts from segment to segment over time, explores customer
segment information to create a customer transition path, and a prevailing transition route, and
then forecasts customer segment behavior (Ha 2007). Customer analysis helps you to analyze
your customers, define your target market, and how you’ll reach them. Following customer
analysis are used by WorldLink:

1. Trends and Needs:

With the continuous changing demand of public and change in ICT technologies, WorldLink
continuously comes up with new creativity and innovative products in a large and complex range
from ISP’s data connectivity, hosting of web and development, maintenance and hardware sales,
and software development and system integration reputed organization’s ICT system such as
United Nation and Nepal Government. These services meet the need for a varied set of clients
from residential broadband to clients SMEs, Enterprises, NGOs, and INGOs. Through its
innovative product offerings, WorldLink established standards and developed specific business
demands which many businesses are obliged to follow.

2. Motivation:

The brand image of WorldLink is one of the prime motivations for its consumers to keep
changing and buying state-of-te-art- services. More than a need, the current trendsetting in the
use of market Data Volume requirements, Digitization in banking, and financial institutional
sectors, a road map to e-governance, have become people’s social needs which gives them the
importance of moving quickly with new generation and self-worth (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).

3. Perception:

In the minds of customers, the general understanding of WorldLink is that the business is a well-
established brand that offers premium services like “Chitto Vanekai WorldLink”. The set of
WorldLink also covers ISP systems, IPTV, Lease side, Internet software, Server Co-Location,
ICT consulting that deals with mere ICT devices and service solutions.

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 4. Behavior:

WorldLink acknowledges that customer behavior is a very essential part of business

development and sustainability. The behavior of the customer is strongly dependent on people’s
financial, economic, political, medical, and psychological behavior (Nagarkoti, 2009). Prompt
customer care is an honest representation of positive behavior. Thus, WorldLink takes all these
considerations into account when designing communication campaigns in different locations in
Nepal.

Competitor Analysis

To understand what makes a company differentiate and stand apart from its rival or competitors
the Point of Parity (POPs) and Point of Differentiation (PODs) are important. In WorldLink’s
case, the point of parity with its business offers to rival companies such as ViaNet, NT,
BroadLink, Ncell, HoNs, but WorldLink also has an enormous and loyal customer base as it is
one of the leading internet service providers of Nepal. Comparing WorldLink and Vianet, both
companies have a very similar type of product. Also, the products provided by WorldLink are
equally good and up-to-date in terms of the advancement of technology and business point of
view.

Point of Differentiation

The point of differentiation is that the company has the widest possible range of products and
services like NETTV and MoBTV as per its customer’s demand and segment. This is the point
where other providers of internet services fail to cater. The competitors of WorldLink target only
the capital city market whereas the WorldLink targets and is present in a vast variety of
customer’s needs, applications, sectors, utilities as well as prices.

WorldLink’s marketing communication failure

WorldLink despite being one of the leading ISPs of Nepal, the company still has some failures
and errors while delivering its messages or information. The communication fails to reach the
customers or is reached in a very ineffective manner. This leads to the end-users being confused
about the products and services. The communication failures are explained in detail below:

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Product

1. Available Packages:

For home-based customers, the company has provided major packages. The packages include:

● a 24Mbps plan with 1 NetTV subscription

● 40 Mbps plan with 3 NetTV subscription
● 60 Mbps plan with 3 NetTV subscription

Many of these packages provide all platforms like NetTV, SafeNet, GO Discount Device, Time
Back, and WIFI Versatility. Unfortunately, the website does not provide details on how these
features and services can be used by the subscriber. This leads to confusion among the customers
as they are not aware of how to use the service.

2. Quality of Internet:

The company faces a lot of criticism in terms of its internet speed now and then. There are
several complaints about the quality of the internet. As the slogan says “Chito Vanekai
WorldLink” but the company has not been able to cope with its slogan. Internet performance is
heavily dependent on several variables including router size, an area where the service is being
transmitted, consumption frequency, and several users. But speed is one of the company’s main
criticisms.

3. NetTV:

WorldLink has provided IPTV service for free to all of its internet subscribers. Being an internet-
based system, internet quality has a big impact on NetTV’s performance. While buffering is one
of the NetTv’s biggest issues, usability is yet another one. Compared with other dish related
wireless networks, NetTv has more features. As a result, it tends to have bad user experience
caused by usage complexity, and bugs and errors that create a problem. There is a lack of proper
user manuals and tutorials to use the system which makes the users more confused.

4. Go Discount App:

This app delivers privileged discounts and deals at 750 + locations, ranging from restaurants,
retail stores, wellness centers, and much more. Despite having a download number of over
10,000 in the Playstore, however, the app has an average rating of 2.3 and doesn’t load in most
mobile phones as of now. The issue persisted for several months. Moreover, the most lacking
piece of information on the website is on how the app can be downloaded or how the users can
use it.

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Place

1. Website Information:

The website of the company contains quite a few pieces of information that are outdated and
need to be updated. For example, the WorldLink office list page states that “WorldLink’s Offices
and collection counters are located in convenient locations across the valley and are open daily
from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Summer), 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Winter) except public holidays and
Saturdays”. However, the offices are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

2. Website User’s Experience:

There are two distinct locations in the menu from which the user can enter the FAQ tab which
creates confusion amongst the customers. There are also few good FAQs and video guides on the
website at one of the FAQ sites. Yet the number of FAQs and tutorials on the page is too limited,
and the video tutorials do not include the new version of the app with updated UI.

3. Customer Support:

Most of the complaints will have been made by all ISPs, including WorldLink, regarding Internet
speed and customer support. WorldLink is recognized comparatively for its excellent customer
support. The company’s promptness is highly recognized among satisfied customers with 24*7
support, app, email, and SMS based notification system. One of the major issues with customer
support for WorldLink, however, has been the lack of toll-free numbers in customer support. It is
also indicated that consumers continue to pay a large premium for customer service. Another
problem for the customers was increased wait time. At the very same time, technical issues such
as being unable to hear the voice, noise disturbances or frequently dropping the call during the
conversation have been noticed.

The above-mentioned points are some of the marketing communication problems WorldLink is
facing with its users.

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 3. Alternative Marketing Communication

WorldLink, with its strategic advantage across the distribution area, sales strategies, and
customer service, has become a market leader throughout the year. However, the company needs
to improve different aspects of its services and keep up with conveying a clear value proposition
to its market segment. As there have been several complaints from customers regarding the
Internet’s consistency (speed) and range (signal strength), the company can rely on these
variables for improved customer satisfaction, positive ratings, and increased market share.

1. Providing manuals and instructions to customers:

WorldLink can start investing in providing user manuals or instructions to its new customers
after the setup. A user manual for each of the NetTV customers should include instructions on
any troubleshooting or bugs. Another solution might be to include a brochure with new
subscribers along with information that includes QR code on how to download and use all apps.
This can help the customers to be clear about which service they are using and what benefits they
are obtaining from it. Then the services will be used more effectively by the users which are
serviceable for the company.

2. Providing a brief description of the service:

The technical staff of WorldLink can give a brief overview of the services available and how
customers can use the mobile app and other services available. The integration of the FAQ
segment and the instructional videos into the myWorldLink ios app can be set up which will
provide users with a one-place solution in case of any problems. The users can then simply
communicate their specific problems in the FAQ segment. This will reduce the user’s time for
visiting the outlet for complaints. There will be fast communication between the service provider
and the user which will provide a good impression of the company.

3. Additional features introduced as updates:

The concerns that occur with the GO Discount App are to be addressed as early as possible. The
program can be updated with different features that would include a better notification system.
Gamification can be introduced to increase brand loyalty and increase the users on Go Discount
App. This will allow users to earn points as they pay or subscribe to internet plans and use them
to renew internet plans for further discounts or to earn discounts on the merchants listed in the
Go Discount App. There is an immediate need to turn the homepage into a sensitive web
website, as the amount of smartphone searches increases across the years. It will contribute to the
number of leads or transitions of positive results. For this, new bug fixes should also be made
necessarily. Also, there are a lot of features for Facebook pages that can be added to reach out for
more numbers of customers which are not seen on the page yet.

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 4. Effective knowledge sharing through different platforms:

When new features are added the website should be regularly updated. Also, the added feature
should be notified to all the users via notifications or through other possible platforms to-to-time.
Just a few customers appear to be interested or informed of the free goodies given with each of
the plans to subscribe. Thus, by distributing this information on the mobile app, brochures, social
media pages, and the website shall keep the customer informed. To have richer and better search
engine ranking and better user experience, some focus on following and implementing better
SEO guidelines must be made. Also, WorldLink should continue to focus on its social media
channels. Twitter can be another very essential platform to be considered in gaining wider
engagement and to gain feedback from the customers.

5. Diversification into online shopping:

Another unique offer may include smartphones or tablets that are equipped with simple software
that are beneficial to children (including the educational services of NetTV and Youtube for
children). WorldLink has a good user base so the company can diversify into online electronics
stores and sell a wide range of networking and electronic products through its Go Discount App.
The company can expand and have a profitable business besides just being a service provider.
Through expanded internet presence and popularity of vlogs, forums, Instagram accounts, and
stardom, marketing campaigns such as affiliate and influencer marketing can be implemented so
see how successful and effective it can be.

These alternative marketing communications can help WorldLink to make an effective market
base for the long term. The services WorldLink is providing is very essential to the users but it is
not being delivered and used properly. There are many queries and confusion among the users of
WorldLink about its services and products it’s offering. To prevent this confusion and have
proper marketing communication WorldLink should apply the above-mentioned alternatives.

Conclusion

Being in the business industry the companies sometimes do face these marketing communication
problems. The companies always cannot get the expected results and outcomes. Similarly, with
WorldLink it is not being able to deliver its intended information and services to its users. The
core message WorldLink is trying to convey to its end users is not clear which creates doubt
between the users. The users are confused about the service and they do not know how to use the

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service and products offered to them. The quality of the speed of WorldLink has also got much
criticism. The users are facing bad website experience as the websites are not revised time and
again. The Go Discount application is not being downloaded by the customers as they are not
informed about its functions.

In the long run, if these mistakes are not ameliorated then the company might face some serious
loss. The users will gradually stop using the service as people these days have many options for
them in the market. And the users would not like to be stuck up with the service which is
confusing and hard to use. This will affect the company’s goal and sales directly. So, the
company should start revising and provide clear and detailed information to its users, update the
websites time and again, add new features such as gamification and notification, and create
knowledgeable website experience for the customers. Therefore, by understanding the mindset
of the users, WorldLink should make a few modifications in its service to retain its old users and
gain new users from the market.

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