Business Research Method

What should Airtel do to acquire more

customers?

Group: 03 (Section- C)
Abhishek Kumar (M136-20)
Anubhav Siddharth (M144-20)
Mayank Kumar Drolia (M166-20)
Megha Sharma (M168-20)
Shubham Chakraborty (M184-20)
Tanmay Tandon (M193-20)

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Management Decision Problem: What should Airtel do to acquire
more customers?

Recently, we have seen a price war in telecommunication and compelled

companies to push their limitations to a new height. The companies are offering
multiple choices, monthly to annual packages to establish their fort. We as a
group tried to figure out the different permutations used by the companies to stay
in the market, and factors leading to their choices. For this we have conducted
research using surveys on different platforms, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
interviews, focused group discussions. And what are the key focus areas that
can be for Airtel?

Industry Analysis:
Presently India is the 2nd largest market in the field of Telecommunication,
almost hitting 1.16B. Present price war has given people multiple options to opt
for or port the old number to a company in order to milk out the most benefits.
CAGR increase in the internet subscriber is 21.37% from 2016 to 2020, reaching
almost 743.2M.
Wireless data usage has gone up by 25,369,679TB in the first Quarter of 2021.
Margins likely to improve from 40 to 45%, on rising average revenue per
user(arpu) and increasing 4g base.
Jio effect: Ad spending rose to 50% since 2016

Market Research Problem:

Since our research focuses on the brand preference by the customers in the
Telecom sector. So, we have designed our Research Problem as,

Finding the consumers’ most preferred company, services that matters the
most, add on services that consumers expect. The willingness of the
customers over switching to other networks.

● What are Consumers’ preferences for telecom companies?

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 ● What factors affect customers' decisions?

● What major services make the most impactful buying decision?

● How does the demography affect the choices?

● What value added services are in more demand?

● How has the coronavirus pandemic affected consumer behavior?

● How to attract more customers

● How can we retain more customers?

Research Plan:

❏ FGDs and depth interview to understand basic factors that affect consumer
decisions regarding telecom sector
❏ Doing Primary and Secondary research to understand about the consumer
behavior and telecom industry
❏ Create a survey questionnaire and include the factors affecting decisions
and learn about what factors affect the consumer behavior in the telecom
industry and telecom operators
❏ Gather the data, clean it and then run various statistical tests to derive
relations between the factors and outcomes.
❏ Determine which factors are most and least important.
❏ On the basis of outcomes, recommending appropriate steps that Airtel
should take in the near future to garner more customers in its ambit.

Method of exploratory research used: Focus Group Discussion

Two Focus group discussions were conducted with 8 members in each group.
The final variables are a result of combined analysis of both the FGDs.

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Insights from Focus Group Discussions

1. Insights from FGD 1

Participants-
❏ o Akshunn Kaushik
❏ o Animesh Sagar
❏ o Sneha Yadav
❏ o Gaurav Peswani
❏ o Pooja Yadav
❏ o Tanmay Sadana
❏ o Vaibhav Khemkha

The purpose of the FGD was to figure out what factors affect the choice of
telecom provider for the customers. These factors will be used in the project
later.

The group was first asked to answer the question in the most basic form to get
an idea of what factors people consider essential off the top of their heads. They
were asked to write down three factors on a sheet of paper so they won’t end up
influencing each other.

The most common answers that people gave were:

❏ Price
❏ Attitude of customer care employees
❏ Internet speed
❏ Value added offers
❏ OTT subscriptions

Another factor that a few people wrote down was voice quality.

They were further asked about how these factors affect their choice and the
degree to which they alter their choice. People who had not written down certain
factors were asked whether they agreed with those as well.

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Tanmay Sadana, for example, had not mentioned “customer care” as one of the
three factors that affect his choice. On asking him if it would be an additional
factor for him, he claimed that he has never had to contact customer service, so
he does not consider it an important factor.

Akshunn Kaushik had not written voice quality as a factor since he rarely
makes calls and prefers using voice call or video call option available on
whatsapp or other such apps. He considers internet speed as the most important
factor for him.

Vaibhav Khemkha does not consider price a significant factor for himself while
making a choice as there is not much of a difference between the prices of
different operators and, like Akshunn, considers internet speed as the most
important factor.

Sneha Yadav agreed that internet speed is important for her, even though she
had not mentioned it as one of the three factors that affect her choice. She claims
that the factors affecting her decisions will be more inclined towards the bundling
options offered by them.

We came across certain factors through secondary research. These

were:

❏ Caller tunes and other services

❏ Data bundle
❏ Interactive voice response during customer care call
❏ Call stability in terms of drop rate with other operators
❏ Customer Service

We asked the participants whether these factors affect their choice when
deciding on a telecom provider, and if they do, to what extent.

Their opinion was similar when it came to “caller tunes and other services”. All of
them felt that it has little if any impact when deciding the telecom provider. It is a
factor that will not make them change their preference. Their reasoning for it was
that it does not directly affect their experience in any way.

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Data bundle seemed to be an important factor for people who travel a lot and do
not have regular access to wifi connections. On the other hand, people who
spend most of their time at home or office were not bothered by the factor. Since
the main factor in data bundle is the price of the bundle, two factors have been
combined to form one factor “Price and data bundle”.
Most people said that they have never had trouble with “Interactive voice
response during customer care call”, making it yet another factor that they have
not had to think about while
making a decision. Participants claimed to have had a smooth experience when
it comes to on- call customer care services.

Most people in the group agreed that “Call stability in terms of drop rate with
other operators” is an important factor because they are used to making long
duration calls and it becomes very annoying if the call drops too often. If they are
on an important call and the call keeps dropping, it becomes challenging to
communicate what might be vital information.

Factors collected from FGD 1 are:

❏ Voice quality
❏ Proximity of customer care centre
❏ Call stability in terms of drop rate with other operators
❏ Internet speed, Attitude of customer care executive in interaction with
customers
❏ Price of call and data bundle
❏ Interactive voice response during customer care call

2. Insights from Depth Interview

Interviewer: Anubhav Mehta
Interviewees:
❏ Abhijeet Gajbhiye Gautam
❏ Preeti Das
❏ Praful kumar

Anubhav: Hi Abhijeet, I hope you and your family are doing well.

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We are here to discuss the factors affecting the telecom subscription attitude for
various companies. Let’s start, what do you think matters most when it comes to
selecting a telecom network service provider?

Abhijeet: I think, the services, or the additional benefits provided by the service
providers are very important. Good network coverage, I also believe that the ad-
ons provided by the operator determines their core customers. And I see Jio and
Airtel are doing very well in this regard. Services like live TV, music, news etc as
an additional feature over the network to retain and acquire customers.

Preeti: According to me, price is a very important factor. If a telecom operator

comes up with a better ad-ons but is priced expensive, then I won’t be
subscribing to it. I and in fact, many feels that the prime function of a service
provider is to provide cheaper network service and not the add-ons. If 2 players
are providing a similar network service, then people determine their service
provider based on the additional services and the efficiency of their services.

Anubhav: I understand that the service in self is the most important factor but
many people value different parameters differently and thus it’s subjective. Thus,
I would like to know the viewpoint of Praful.

Praful: I feel that along with all the above inputs, a proper service also plays an
important role. The one with the best service quality can also be considered. So,
in this regard, customer service, according to me, is an important factor to judge
a service provider. Airtel and Jio are among those with very good customer
services.

Preeti: It’s important to have good service quality and great customer service
both. In terms of service quality, I feel, quality of the call is very critical. These
days, a lot of people including me have issues with the quality of call and
messages. People often face high call drop issues during intra service providers.
Due to the price war, these issues have increased and it’s a concern these days.

Abhijeet: it’s true about the call drops. I also faced the call drops issue with my
Jio operator, quality is very important. If people are unable to communicate, it’s a
failure of the telecom company.

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Abhijeet: I have the same feeling. Praful, what do you think, is this point valid?

Praful: Yes, I do. I do accept the points about the importance of the quality of the
service. In fact, all the service providers are facing these issues and the ministry
is trying to normalize the gaps. The telecom companies can work towards better
service in the additional services and the quality of customer service.

Anubhav: What are your thoughts on the extra services provided by the telecom
companies to attract customers?

Preeti: Services like free caller tune services, which was charged before. They
also provide anti-theft schemes, free online music, movies etc. Some even
provide access to Amazon Prime and Netflix. All these services act as
differentiators and do affect my preference.

Anubhav: Thank you for bringing a very important point. It’s true that telecom
service providers are facing some issues and in order to gain market share, they
have now come up with additional services. These services nowadays are
market drivers.

Anubhav: What are your thoughts about the customer service offered by the
telecom operators and how do you feel about the same?

Abhijeet: In customer service, I feel the attitude of the customer care executive
is something worth discussing. Whenever I interact with a customer care
executive, most of the time they seem rude and end up irritating and taking a
long time for a small issue. This is really disappointing. And this does factor in
times & becomes a reason for someone to be inclined towards some network
operator

Anubhav: I appreciate everyone’s effort to come here at a short notice and bless
us with your presence. I feel your input is invaluable and highly important. I would
like to thank everyone for your precious time.

Summary of the FGD

The interviewee felt the following factors as relevant:
1. Prices of the networks and different packs

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2. Offers provided by the telecom service providers like free access to OTT
platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.
3. Quality of services, such as quality of call and call drop frequency.
4. Additional services like caller tunes etc.
5. The overall efficiency of customer service and their attitude towards customers
6. Interactive voice response during customer care call

Questionnaire:

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Research Methodologies:
1. Factor Analysis: In order to data and better analysis we have chosen the
Factor Analysis method. Since with the presence of a large number of
variables, some of them will be correlated, we can use this analysis to find
commonalities and bring an inference out of it.

2. Discriminant Analysis: In order to determine what sort of category a new

response will fall into.
We considered two set of people, one who is willing to switch other
networks and other who isn’t. We tried to analyze, what are those
significant factors which influence the user for his/her decision making.

3. Cluster Analysis: To identify particular set of characteristics and the kind

of bundle they form. If any new information can be interpreted and how
clusters can be formed out of it.

4. T-Test: We needed to conduct the t-test in order to test the significance

of each factor.

5. Anova Test: To determine the statistical mean variance b/w two or more
independent groups.

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 Factor Analysis:

Anti-Image Correlation: The diagonal values are greater than 0.6, so our
factor consideration is relevant.

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Even individual communalities statements are greater than 0.5.

Eigenvalues of two components are greater than 1.

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Output:

Two kinds of services are formed:

1. Focused on connectivity and prices
2. Focused on value added services

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In the Reliability test, the value of alpha is greater than 0.6 which shows the
combination of 6 factors are accurate.

In Scree Plot, we can see that there are two drops which backs the two
kinds of components formed.

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 T-test Results

Voice Quality - May be or May be not a significant factor

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Call Drop rate - Not Significant

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Internet Connectivity - Significant

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Customer Service and Affordable plans - Significant

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Free OTT Subscriptions- Not Significant

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Network Coverage: Not Significant

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Value Added Offers: Not Significant

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ONE WAY ANOVA

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Discriminant Analysis

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When we look at the Group Statistics, people not looking to switch to other
networks have given higher means to Internet Connectivity, Voice Quality, Free
OTT, Customer Service, Network Coverage while Value added offers, Call Drop,
Affordable plans aren’t that major issues.

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Canonical Correlation when squared doesn’t bring out the desired attribute, the
confidence interval should have been minimum of (½*100 + 25)% and Wilk’s
Lambda as minimum as possible.

Though they have not the criteria, the reason can be not significant number
of Responses and filling up the form by users with random numbers.

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Cluster Analysis

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Similarly, to Discriminant Analysis, the accuracy of the Cluster Analysis can’t be
assured since there are 79 responses, and random number allocated by the
users.

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Reference:

https://www.ibef.org/industry/telecommunications.aspx
https://www.livemint.com/Industry/BNw5kNyk6FE5Ou7Nd8FWRI/Jio-effect-
Telecom-firms-ad-spending-rose-50-in-2016-say.html
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/bharti-airtels-
margins-likely-to-improve-to-45-in-2021-moodys/articleshow/79546442.cms

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