Introduction..............................................................................................................................

2
Objective...................................................................................................................................2
Methodology.............................................................................................................................2
Sampling for survey......................................................................................................................................2
Sampling Method.........................................................................................................................................2
Field Work.....................................................................................................................................................3
Market in Lucknow...................................................................................................................3
Players in Lucknow..............................................................................................................3
STP.......................................................................................................................................3
Segmenting.....................................................................................................................................................3
Positioning.....................................................................................................................................................3
Targeting........................................................................................................................................................4
The other 3Ps.......................................................................................................................4
Distribution..........................................................................................................................4
Advertising...........................................................................................................................4
Sales Promotion...................................................................................................................5
Trade Promotion..................................................................................................................5
Basis of competition.............................................................................................................5
Current Services Being Offered by ESSAR...........................................................................5
Strengths of ESSAR..............................................................................................................5
Weaknesses of ESSAR...........................................................................................................6
Strengths of USHA...............................................................................................................6
Measures of Customer Satisfaction......................................................................................6
Consumer Behaviour................................................................................................................7
Mapping Customer’s consumption chain...............................................................................12
Data Analysis..........................................................................................................................14
Findings and Results...............................................................................................................14
Recommendations...................................................................................................................17
Introduction

Objective
The objective of this project is to study the cellular phone market to find out the
extent to which the service providers are utilizing the concepts of marketing in this
area, and
⇒ to find out the needs of the users
⇒ to suggest means of improving the marketing performance of an existing player.

For this purpose, we will take up the problem from Essar service providers.

Methodology
The study was carried out in three stages:
1. Analysis of secondary data.
2. Preliminary research: to identify the issues involved. It was used to first generate a
comprehensive set of attributes (and benefits) and then subsequently arrive at a
smaller set of important attributes (and benefits). This included in-depth
interviews with both, the users and the service providers.
3. Consumer Survey: this was carried out by means of a questionnaire survey. The purpose
was to find out the needs and perceptions of the consumers.

Sampling for survey

The sampling frame for the survey were all the people who have used cellphone in
the past or are currently using it. This was ensured by having a qualifier question in
the beginning of the questionnaire. The sampling unit was an individual user of
cellphone. Since our survey will be limited to the city of Lucknow, U.P., the resultant
size of our sampling frame is approximately 2 lakhs.

Sampling Method
Due to the physical and time constraints under which the research is to be carried out,
Convenience Sampling was resorted to.
Field Work
The pattern we followed for our field work was to visit the office complexes, business
areas, and upscale markets. If a cellphone user was seen, we conducted the
questionnaire ourselves ensuring the effective completion of the questionnaire.

Market in Lucknow

Players in Lucknow
As per regulations, each market is allotted to two service providers. The Lucknow market is
allotted to ESSAR and USHA.

Presently, both, ESSAR and USHA have an even market share of around 50% each. The
number of consumers are around 7000 each.

STP

Segmenting
Presently the players segment the market on three bases :
1. the utility of the phone to the consumer. This means that a trader would have a different
use for the cellphone from a company executive whose usage pattern would be
different from a housewife who has received the cellphone as a gift from his husband.
2. buying power. This refers to the likely usage pattern of the cellphone.
3. age group.

Positioning
The services offered presently show very little differentiation. This is so because the basic
product being offered is the same. Also, an important element on which the quality of service
provided (like clarity of voice and number of breakdowns etc.) depend is the DOT which is
the same for both the players. The technology currently being used, GSM protocol in India
which is common to both, does not guarantee basement and indoor coverage. This can be
enhanced but only at tremendous costs (of the order of $500 per connection). None of the
players presently is in a position to sink in that kind of money. The schemes being offered
by one player are essentially monetary in nature and are easily copied by the competitor.

In this situation, the most obvious way to position is either on price or on augmented
services. ESSAR tried to position on differentiated service like their Connect Card but the
severe price competition by USHA has forced it to follow suit. The present position can best
be termed as unposition. The companies sell to any body and everybody who comes to
them.

Targeting
There is no clear positioning currently adopted by the two players. Therefore, they are
following mass marketing presently.

The other 3Ps

Distribution
The method of distribution is through dealers and retailers. ESSAR presently has four
company showrooms and four dealers. These dealers appoint their own retailers. The dealers
are not exclusive. They are paid a rent for keeping ESSAR products. The dealers provide
both, the pre-paid and post-paid services. For the post-paid services, the dealer does not need
any authorisation from the company. For the pre-paid card the dealer needs to get approval by
the company. The company gives its approval based on its assessment of the authenticity and
credibility of the customer. This is established through various means like a copy of the
income tax return form. To this extent, their functioning is quite similar to the consumer
finance companies. The dealers are not supposed to accept any payment from the consumer
for the post-paid card. All the payments are to be made to the company directly. The
company accepts payments through credit cards as well.

The dealers are not exclusive. They are free to keep any product including competitors’
products. The dealerships are not exclusive because the present volumes of business can not
make an exclusive outlet economically viable.

Advertising
The advertising is mostly restricted to the print media and outdoors. ESSAR gives
considerable autonomy to its Regional Office at Lucknow in terms of deciding the mix.
However, the artwork is handled by their agency in Delhi. To identify the marketing needs
etc. ESSAR has hired ORG-MARG which carries out marketing research on its behalf.

The print media ads. generate a lot of response in short time. Hence, print ad. campaigns are
run mostly to introduce new services. For the promotional offers that run for a long duration,
the print medium becomes unviable. For this, outdoors are used.
There is a felt need to have customised campaigns for UP. A typical problem faced in UP is
that even an ad budget of ten crores could not be spent.

Sales Promotion
A lot of schemes are presently being run by both the companies to attract the potential
consumers. These, take various forms like discounts on incoming calls during Diwali time.
All these, in one form or the other, provide the consumer free air-time. The reason for this is
that the operating costs to the service providers is practically nil. Hence, any revenue,
howsoever small it may be, goes to add to the profit. But a plethora of such schemes,
continuously offered has its associated problems. For example, it may distort the consumers’
perception of price and would make it difficult for the service providers to raise the prices in
the future.

Trade Promotion
Many trade promotion schemes are offered by the service providers. An example is the cards
of different tariff structure. In place of the normal 16-8-4 structure they may offer 12-6-3. A
certain number of these cards are provided free to the dealer. The dealer can sell these to his
valued customers. The dealer thus, gains both, in terms of money and earns goodwill too.

Apart from this, a lot of gimmicks like concerts and movie shows are organised by the
service providers. The dealers are given free passes to these shows.

The main thrust is still on the commission that is based on the number of cards sold i.e. the
volume of business that a dealer gives to the service provider.

Basis of competition
In the scenario described above, the only way to gain competitive advantage is through
constant incremental innovations in the total product-service offering and thus, present the
competition with a moving target. This is precisely what is being done by the players today.
ESSAR first offered the Connect Card that offered Rs. 8400 worth of free air time. It was
like an FMCG item, it was a fully activated card that could be bought on cash payment.
USHA responded by slashing it air-time rates drastically. The result was that ESSAR had to
follow suit. The present rates in UP - West is Re. 1 per minute, the second lowest in the
world. Now, ESSAR has launched Speed, a per-paid SIM card. This is still to be matched by
USHA.

The worst part is that this price competition has eroded the mutual trust and cooperation
between the two players in UP. Because of this, the attempt to have cooperation on sharing
data on defaulters has met with failure.

Current Services Being Offered by ESSAR

Strengths of ESSAR
The folowing strengths of ESSAR in Western UP are identifiable -
1. Collaboration with Swiss Telecom. Swiss Telecom is the world leader with a presence in
over forty countries world wide.
2. ESSAR has the hardware provided by Siemens. This is distinctly superior to the on used
by ESSAR’s competitor USHA which is that of ALCATEL. ALCATEL’s switch is
being used for the first time and its reliability is much less as compared to that of
Siemens which is a proven technology.
3. Strong brand name of ESSAR. USHA has a problem with its brand name because it has
been used for items like sewing machines etc. and thus lacks the premium
connotation that is needed.
4. ESSAR’s resources of handsets are much superior to that of USHA.

Weaknesses of ESSAR
The weaknesses of ESSAR are -
1. The geographical coverage provided by ESSAR is much less as compared to that by
USHA. This is primarily because USHA entered earlier than ESSAR.
2. UP needs different working. It needs a local flavour to sell to the people in UP. For
example, the people in UP are tie averse. They will, at times, ask the sales
representative to take off his tie while talking to them. It also requires a good flavour
for Hindi.
3. There is a need for local marketing research.
4. ESSAR does not have a local database at Lucknow that can be used for targeting.

Strengths of USHA
1. USHA entered earlier that ESSAR and thus, had the first mover advantage. It was able to
capture the cream of the potential consumers.
2. It has more extensive geographic coverage than ESSAR.
3. It has a better dealer network.
4. It is quick to fight back on the initiatives taken by ESSAR.

Measures of Customer Satisfaction

The customers come in contact with the company hardly once a month or even less. And this
too is usually when the customer faces some trouble like debarring or some snag with the
handset. There were attempts made to measure customer satisfaction through questionnaires.
These questionnaires were mailed to the subscribers along with their monthly statements.
This method failed because of the paltry rate of return of the responses.
Presently, ESSAR captures its customer satisfaction through the following measures:
1. How long has the consumer been with ESSAR?
2. His complaints record. This is easily tracked as a record is maintained of every
complaint made by the consumer. The complaints are generally received on the
following five counts
• barring of service on account of non-payment.
• deactivation again, on account of non-payment
• DOT connectivity, PSTN not accessible.
• quality of signal is bad, distortion or strength.
1. The payment pattern of the consumer.
2. The usage pattern of the consumer. Both the above items are easy to track because the
electronic gadgetry involved automatically keeps a track of the usage by each individual
cellphone and the billing is done through a sophisticated software. Thus, this information
is available to the company at little extra cost.

Consumer Behaviour
The cellular services have been around in Lucknow since mid-1995 but they have
entered the growth stage since a year and a half ago. Quite a lot of time was taken to
educate the potential consumers about the possible benefits likely to accrue from
these services. But still consumer education needs to be undertaken on a very wide
scale as even though the service category awareness among them is high yet the exact
benefits still need to be communicated more effectively for more consumers to try
them out.

The consumers who are using the cellular services in Lucknow number around
15,000. This is a very insignificant number when compared to the target population
of about 1,00,000 potential consumers identified by Essar cellphones according to
income and consumer utility based segmentation. There are basically two types of
consumers:

a) those who satisfy their business needs through these services, i.e., the utility based
segment
b) those for whom a cellular phone serves as a status symbol.

Consumers that belong to type (a) are those who are clear about the attributes that are
relevant for their purchase of cellular services. This segment consists of those
consumers that represent the ‘Early Adopters’. They have well defined needs (mainly
mobile communication) that they perceive are satisfied ably by these services. They
base their purchase criteria on how much of these needs are being satisfied by which
brand. The purchase decision goes in favour of that brand which is perceived by them
as offering the largest amount of their relevant needs to them. As for them the
purchase involves both financial (high-priced) and psychological (the wrong decision
may cause some concern and anxiety) risks, these consumers are highly involved in
these purchase decisions. Since, these consumers are clear about the choice criteria on
which to base their brand purchase and only need to examine the degree to which
various brands satisfy their needs, their decision making involves Limited Problem
Solving (LPS). In order to be to tap these type of consumers, Essar needs to build its
brand image and evoke interest among them through effective advertising. Thus, the
advertising needs to be focused on portraying additional benefits / USPs provided by
Essar. The consumers who currently use these services have achieved a fair degree of
familiarity with the choice criteria (attributes) for selecting a particular service
operator. The relevant attributes for them are: Price of the handset offered by the
service provider, brand of the handset, variety of services provided (i.e., local, STD
or ISD), price of these services (both for incoming and outgoing calls), mode of
payment for the services (pre-paid or post-paid) and customer service provided by
the operator. Besides these various consumer promotional schemes like free air-time,
free hand-sets, etc. have achieved a great degree of importance for these consumers to
base their decision on.

The consumers of type ( b) abound to a large degree in Lucknow as the cellular phone
is perceived by them more as a means of portraying their affluence rather than
offering them a unique utility. They represent that segment of consumers who are
termed as ‘Early Majority’. It needs to be understood in this case that the status
symbol needs are served simply by the category of services (i.e., cellular services)
rather than through a particular brand as both the operators are perceived to be
providing largely uniform services. Hence, for these consumers the criteria for brand
differentiation are not established along the utilitarian benefits. However, they are
highly involved in their purchases as they perceive social risks (services important to
the peer group) inherent in this purchase decision. They buy cellular services not only
for what they can do for them but more importantly for what they mean to them.
Their purchase is a reflection of what they are- their values, aspirations and social
connections. Rather than using the utilitarian criteria, they frequently use emotional
criteria for basing their purchase on. This purchase is important for them as it reflects
their self-image. Their information processing is likely to hinge on the tie between the
symbols they see in these services and the association of these symbols to the their
self images and social roles. Brand evaluation, if any, is more likely to be based on
the experiences and emotions that are likely to result from using the brand rather than
brand’s utilitarian value and economic value. Hence, in order to tap them, Essar’s
advertising should try to associate their service with the symbols that generate
positive emotions and fantasies. Product characteristics and price become less
important elements in the marketing strategy designed for these consumers. The
overriding concern should be with establishing a brand image that is linked with
positive emotions. If Essar’s symbols used for its services become strongly linked
with positive emotions, these consumers may eventually purchase by habit rather than
decision making.

As both the type (a) and type (b) consumers are highly involved in their purchase
decisions, the model of purchase that they follow is:
i) Brand beliefs are formed first by active learning
ii) Brands are evaluated
iii) A purchase decision is made
For information processing only the most important and relevant information to the
brand decision will be stored in their long-term memory. As perceived risk is because
of high price, service complexity, the importance of the service to the consumers’
peer groups or the consumers’ emotional attachment to the product, consumers seek
additional information before making a purchase decision. These consumers use
various Evaluative strategies when making a purchase of cellular services. These
strategies are attribute-specific they are both involved with the brand and
knowledgeable about the product category. They are unlikely to be satisfied with an
overall judgment of brands based on past information. They are likely to seek
additional information about brands and to evaluate them based on specific attributes.
Consumers in this category can evaluate brands one at a time across a range of
attributes (compensatory evaluation) or evaluate specific attributes across the range of
brands being considered (non-compensatory evaluation). Non-compensatory
strategies include the following:

i) Conjunctive: A consumer considers a brand only if it meets acceptable

standards on key attributes.
ii) Lexicographic: Consumers first evaluate brands on the most important
attribute. If there is a tie, consumers next evaluate brands on the second most
important attribute, and so on until a brand is selected.
If consumers use these compensatory strategies, Essar needs to communicate a broad
set of service attributes to allow consumers to make comparisons between brands. If
they use non-compensatory strategies, they should focus on those few key attributes
that consumers are likely to use in brand evaluation.
For the majority of the consumers who have not at all been exposed to the cellular
services, they are not only unfamiliar with the kind of services on offer or USPs of
the operators but also about who the operators are or what choice criteria to base
decision on when going to purchase these services. The amount of information that
needs to be communicated by Essar to this segment is maximum i.e., a great deal of
consumer education needs to be undertaken by them for this segment. They have to
not only be educated about the various unique services that Essar is offering but also (
and more importantly) about the advantages that cellular services can offer them in
the first place. For them, the cellular services are an innovative class of services.
Since, their awareness is so limited, they have low involvement and limited interest in
them. Also their capacity to process information about the service hierarchy is
limited. In order to undertake an education exercise for these consumers (i.e., market
development), Essar needs to give them Practical knowledge about the relative
advantages of their services with respect to their closest substitutes( existing
telephone services, PCO operators). This comparison with a very similar service
existing today needs to be made for these consumers to facilitate their choice criteria.
Only after this exercise of market development by Essar for their category of services
should they go for developing their brand image among them.

Besides these facts Essar needs to be wary of the large scale unwillingness of the
average Indian consumer to pay for value-added services. The basic inhibitant for the
consumer is the lack of tangibility in services. If the consumer can’t touch it, he sees
no big reason to value it. If he can’t see it, so much the worse. Cellphone operators
have generally been exposed to this trauma since the inception of their services in
India. Unlike instrument hawkers who have global economies of scale, they bank
solely on local volumes. The call usage is abysmally low. A survey in Madras has
revealed that the average consumer won’t cough up more than Rs.500 per month on
airtime as the marketers feel that the Indian market isn’t fully ready to pay for these
services. In the US, the one can get a handset for under a dollar, but the service
charges are high. In India, handsets bear relatively obscene tags ( partly because of
high import tariffs), but service providers are selling airtime way below DoT,s ceiling
rates. In Delhi, Essar Cellphone has been involved in tough competition with Airtel
and both have cut the prices of their airtime drastically. Essar’s peak rate is about Rs.
16 per minute, but by dangling free bundles of airtime along with instruments, it is
driving down what the consumer sees as his service costs. Essar has been selling a
handset for Rs. 13,500 with a claimed Rs. 6,000 worth of airtime thrown in free.
Even though Essar feels that the airtime has been reduced to being tag-0alongs worth
handsets , the joint deals are officially a part of a sampling measure aimed at
penetrating the market. Essar also has had to throw airtime on incoming calls at its
existing customers. The observation is that the consumer looks for things that he can
see in the product, so you can get him interested only through the handset. To the
typical user, using cellular technology is a symbol of status, and this is a need
satisfied by the handset rather than the service. This is evident from Delhi, where
dummy handsets are carried about. Only Bombay, which is less status crazy, is the
city where rent-a-call phone services are doing decently. Even the person who uses a
mobile phone as a productivity tool isn’t all that pleased with the call rates either. To
him, cellular technology is a plain extension of his regular phone. For the benefit of
mobility, he credits the machine, just as he did his cordless. He is simply not aware of
Essar’s hi-tech network that goes into work to provide him with these services. A few
long term strategies that Essar can employ are:
Sell itself to corporate users as a service provider rather than as a machine seller.
Moving closer to the end gratification will build a special kind of loyalty that
outweighs the consumer’s aversion to paying for intangibles.
Focus on strictly defined utility areas. Due to this when business snowballs someday,
the value of its network will rise as a square of its users.
Build on aggregate consumer experience. In the long run, this will make the biggest
difference. The secret is to follow a ‘Let them feel it’ guiding principle w.r.t. the
consumers. This will see to it that things get sorted out and the cellular services will
get their due as our country develops.

Mapping Customer’s consumption chain

In order to understand and to bring out the consumer’s experience with cellular services
better, we took a journey through the consumer’s consumption chain. This is described
below:

1. How do people become aware of the their need for the product or
service? Most of the consumers become aware of their need for the
product by observing friends or colleagues using a cellphone. This
does not hold in case of the executives who are given cellphone from
their company in which case the decision to purchase the cellphone in
not taken by the person using it but by somebody else in his company.
2. How do consumers find the offering? They are mostly satisfied with the
offering but not really delighted. The reaction seemed more one of
indifference. The reason could be the lack of sufficient number of
competitive offerings against which to compare.
3. How do consumers make their final selection? The final selection can be
made either before going to the shop or in the shop itself. It is not
uncommon for the consumer to alter his decision in the shop itself
under the influence of the retailer or the dealer’s salesman. The
salesman may be able to sway the consumer on his choice of service
offering by his chosen service provider or even his choice of the
service provider.
4. How do customers order or purchase the product or service? The
customer goes to a retailer or a dealer or the company showroom
depending upon which advertisement he comes across or the advise of
his friend or acquaintance. In the shop he is facilitated by the
salesman/salesgirl in his choice of the service offering based on the
needs of the consumer. Most consumers buy the handset from the
service provider itself. If he goes for a pre-paid card the payment is
made then and there itself. Otherwise, the formalities are completed
 and sent to the company for approval and the payment is made to the
company through check or cash.
5. How is the product or service delivered? The tangible part of the offering,
i.e. the hand set is delivered at the retail outlet. The actual service gets
delivered as the consumer uses his cellphone to communicate.
6. What happens when the product or service is delivered? At the time of
delivery of service, the contact of the customer and the service
provider is minimal. The consumer uses the cellphone to talk to
(mostly, though a cellphone has other functionalities as well)
somebody. There is no cash outflow from the consumer at the time the
service is being rendered or immediately after that.
7. How is the product or service paid for? The service is paid for either before
the use (purchase of pre paid card) or after the use (the monthly
bills/rental in the case of the post paid card). In either case, the
payment is lump-sum while the rendition of service is spread out over
a period of time.
8. How is the product stored or moved around? The physical manifestation of
the offering, the cellphone or handset, as it is called, is a fairly small
sized gadget and easily fits in the palm of the hand. It is also possible
to carry around the set on ones belt. The service is actually stored in
the SIM card (either pre paid or post paid).
9. What is the customer using the product really for? All consumers use the
cellphone for communicating while in the move. The real benefit is
that mobility that it provides. However, quite a significant proportion
of the people use it as a status symbol. Thus, the usage by such people
is low.
10. What do customers need help with when they use the product? The actual
usage is quite simple. An average person is pretty comfortable with the
elementary usage of receiving and originating calls. However, most of
the advanced features of the handset are not known to most people.
The consumers may need help if one - the connectivity fails, two - the
handset develops a technical snag or, three - the user is debarred or
deactivated mostly due to non-payment.
11. How is the product repaired or serviced? The repair is carried out by the
dealers of the handset.
12. What happens when the product is disposed off or no longer used? There
are no take back offers currently. We did not meet a single respondent who
has disposed of his handset in the past. Mostly, when one upgrades ones
handset, which is rare, he sell it off to somebody or gives to his children etc.

Data Analysis

Findings and Results

In the order of questionnaire questions

The penetration of cellphones in Lucknow is low, we found only 44 cellphone users out of
around 70 likely users we approached. This finding agrees with the national trends.

3. There was no marked preference for either USHA or ESSAR. The term used to
refer to the cellphone was mobile.

75% of the users were new converts, having had the cellphone for one or two months
only.

Word of mouth i.e. friends and acquaintances came out as the dominant information
source. As many as 60% had learnt of it through this route.

1. 70% of the respondents were businessmen and have bought the cellphone themselves.
Most of them had availed of the service from the company owned showroom of the
service provider.

Received Calls

No. of calls Number of

respondents
0 to 5 14
5 to 10 20
10 to 20 6
>20 4

Dialed Calls

No. of calls Number of

respondents

0 to 5 25
5 to 10 17
10 to 20 5
>20 2

As indicated in the table, most of the respondents receive less than 10 calls a day. Further,
they avoid making calls from the cellphone. This indicates the price sensitivity of the
consumers.

55% of the respondents were unaware of the value added services and 60% of the
people who had availed of the service, did not use it.
Reco: educate the consumer

The attribute importance ratings were converted to rankings by the Thurston V

method.

The attributes are listed in the decreasing order of importance:

1. The tariff (Rs/minute of airtime)

2. Quality of transmission
3. The coverage provided
4. Value added services
5. The type of handset provided
6. The courtesy of the staff
7. The guaranty on the handset

Ratings

For segmenting the cellphone users market

Two bases were tried out for segmenting the market viz. Psychographics and service
Attributes.

For Psychographic questions, the following steps were carried out:

♦ Factor Analysis on the respective variables

♦ Wards Clustering using the factors arrived at in the previous step

♦ Quick Clustering using the same factors

For the Attribute Importance :

♦ Wards Clustering using the attributes themselves

♦ Quick clustering on the attributes

In order to cross-check the statistical validity of the clusters arrived at a discriminant

analysis on the clusters was performed. On the basis of the F ratio given by the
Discriminant Analysis, the basis for segmentation was decided.

We found Benefit segmentation as the appropriate basis of selection. On the basis of

these, we segmented the market into two segments. These clusters were described
using the psychographic & demographic characteristics.

Cluster A (Size 23) Cluster B (Size 21)

Use the cellphone for its utilitarian Use the cellphone as a status symbol
function
i.e. mobile communication
Experimental, Early Adopters Follower
Likely to be aware about value added Likely to be unaware about value added
services services
Rational Not always rational
Likely heavy users Likely medium users
Cautious Not very cautious
Independent minded Needs approval

Age was not found to be a discriminating factor between the clusters. In almost all
cases, the monthly household income was greater than Rs. 15000/-

Recommendations
Recommendations: Establish systems which map the consumption chain of the
service. This is even more necessary for such a category such as cellphone services in
India. As the results of our analysis indicate, most consumers are still not clear about
this product, and therefore do not use most of the value added services.
Specifically, the following recommendations are made:
1. Make the call to customer service/complaints free. This will build goodwill
and also increase customer feedback. This is pretty low presently.
2. All the services apart from the basic function of originating and receiving calls
need to be activated after the connection has been installed. This is
rather a tedious process requiring a number of calls etc. on the part of
the consumer. This process should be simplified. There is a good scope
of creating consumer delight here.
3. In no country other than India is incoming calls charged. If receiving calls can
be made free it will encourage the user to talk more on the cellphone.
This will get him used to the cellphone. In due course of time his
usage rate will increase and his preference for mobile over the
conventional land line phone will also increase. This will allow the
subscriber to give out his number to a lot more people and they, in
turn, will get exposed to the idea of cellphone.
4. Internet based services can be launched.
5. Presently, the billing process is tedious. The bill contains a lot of unwanted
information. This can be improved upon. The bill itself can be
customised. The billing cycle too can be customised.
6. The consumers do not understand how to use most of the functions of the
handset. This gives a good opportunity to the service providers to
educate the customers about the use of the handset. This will greatly
enhance the customer’s use experience and his perception of value
derived from the offer. This will provide the service provider who
does this with a competitive advantage in the form of goodwill and
customer loyalty.
7. As the usage by the subscribers is low, the service providers are trying to
generate revenue by increasing the fixed prices. Thus, they charge for all
functions provided by them except for CLIP and that too, they are planning to
charge in the near future. This, in effect, increases the price as perceived by
the potential subscriber and further adds to the barrier to buy the service. The
service provider should actually provide more of the services for free. This
will enhance the subscriber’s perception of value derived from the offer.

Existing systems should be enhanced to understand the consumer better. An ideal

feedback system should answer the following questions: