Empirical Assessment of Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Indian Telecom Sector: Users’ Perception

The telecommunication industry has its roots since the industrial era, but it has been under constant change, both in evolutionary and revolutionary patterns. Technological developments in the industry have undergone an evolutionary change, with the modernisation of the equipment, which possesses the ability to function more with lower space requirements. Additional usages like internet, Virtual Private Network VPN and Wi-max have acted as catalysts to increase the importance of the telecommunication industry. A revolutionary change can be observed in the business processes and management principles of the players in the industry, as the customer experience and high-end value services are generating positive cash flows for the existing players. Besides that, low tariff levels, connectivity, signal strength, various data services and a host of innovative value-added services are likely to determine the performance of the telecom players in future.

This paper provides insights about the Indian telecom environment from the customer's perspective by using the scales provided by the SERVQUAL model (designed by Zeithmal et al.) and various analytical tools like t-test, factor analysis, etc. Findings of this paper, would act as directives to the marketers in the Indian telecom industry to understand their customers better.