group 9 vodafone - crm practices

December 23, 2009 [VODAFONE – CRM PRACTICES]

PGDM BATCH 2008-10 1

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANEGEMENT

A Report on Vodafone Essar India and their CRM practices.

Prepared By:

Ravi Agarwal(084)

Piyush Kejriwal(065)

Piyush Jain(066)

Sudipto Das(105)



Contents

Topic Page No.

Vodafone – The Company 3

Brand Building 4

The Vodafone Promise 6

Complaints 8

Vodafone CRM Model 9

Conclusion 11



Vodafone - The Company

Vodafone was formed in 1984 as a subsidiary of Racal Electronics Plc. Then known as Racal

Telecom Limited, approximately 20% of the company's capital was offered to the public in

October 1988. It was fully demerged from Racal Electronics Plc and became an independent

company in September 1991, at which time it changed its name to Vodafone Group Plc.

Vodafone Group Plc is the world's leading mobile telecommunications company, with a

significant presence in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and the United States

through the Company's subsidiary undertakings, joint ventures, associated undertakings and

investments.

Vodafone Essar is the Indian subsidiary of Vodafone Group and commenced operations in 1994

when its predecessor Hutchison Telecom acquired the cellular license for Mumbai. The company

now has operations across the country with over 85.82 million customers**.Over the years,

Vodafone Essar, under the Hutch brand, has been named the ‘Most Respected Telecom

Company’, the ‘Best Mobile Service in the country’ and the ‘Most Creative and Most Effective

Advertiser of the Year’. Vodafone is the world's leading international mobile communications

group with approximately 315 million proportionate customers as on 30 June 2009. Vodafone

currently has equity interests in 31 countries across five continents and around 40 partner

networks worldwide. The Essar Group is a diversified business corporation with a balanced

portfolio of assets in the manufacturing and services sectors of Steel, Energy, Power,

Communications, Shipping Ports & Logistics, and Projects. Essar employs more than 50,000

people across offices in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.

**Figures from Cellular Operators Association of India, October 31, 2009



Brand Building Exercise - Keeping Customers in mind

As one can see Vodafone was once the top brand globally and this cannot be achieved unless

the customers have been happy with the product / service the company is offering. There will be

few complaints here and there but remember in today’s world nothing is absolute, everything is

measured in relative terms and on that scale Vodafone was once the leader of the pack.

Relationship with customers can only be built when the top management is fully

committed towards that goal and this feeling can be captured beautifully by the below

mentioned quote.

“The most valuable brands in the world are those where the customer knows they’re

going to get a good experience”

- Sir John Bond, Chairman, Vodafone

After reading the above quote there is a small doubt which may arise in most minds

certainly it did in ours i.e. - How does a customer become happy with a particular

company / organization?



According to us one of the ways can be - if the promises that were made when the

potential customer was converted into actual customer are kept after the “conversion”

has taken place.



The Vodafone Promise

Let’s have a look at the promises that Vodafone makes to its customers

• A network you can rely on when you need it

• Expert, friendly help and advice – you only have to ask once

• When you’re abroad, the services you need will be as easy to use as at home,

and you’ll know what you are paying

• New and inspiring solutions to help you make the most of your time

We all know that the first one is the most important and that is the only one that really

matters to most customers, and as per our study Vodafone scores quiet well, which will

be further substantiated through the course of this report.

I have been a Vodafone (previously Hutch) subscriber myself for the last 6 years and am

reasonably satisfied with the services provided by it compared to other service

providers.

In my first year as a customer of Vodafone when I was in Bangalore we had several

offers from the company which were very attractive and worth the investment for

example we had an offer where “one rupee would be cut daily and you would get 100

local SMS free” and it prompted a lot of students to take up Vodafone connections

instead / parallel to one they were using earlier.

I feel their customer care is above par in all respect compared to other service providers

as most of the time the query which was generated is solved in quick time and that can

only be achieved when the customer care executives are well trained and updated with

all the offers and the systems are online working properly as well.

When I shifted to Greater Noida, the main reason to take up Vodafone was that all my

friends in other cities had Vodafone and it would be cheaper for them to call me and



vice-versa if I use the same so it prompted me to take up Vodafone and anyways I

hadn’t had any rough experiences so I was satisfied with it. Till now I am using the same

connection and barring few trivial things I don’t have any issues.

Things they can improve upon is their DND (Don’t want to be Disturbed) service on

activating which one shouldn’t get all the promotional offers from different set of

companies. The company says that your number will be removed from the list in 45 days

now the question is why 45 days when it should be just a matter of updating records. On

an average one subscriber gets 8 – 10 messages and call daily regarding some or the

other offers. There is a catch with this though i.e. if you register for DND service you

wouldn’t receive messages / calls from Vodafone as well regarding all the different new

schemes and that’s why many people just bear with it which includes me.

Overall if I have to judge Vodafone I would say that their quality of network has

deteriorated from before and continues to do so. The rate of call drops is increasing all

the time may be due to decreasing ARPUs but still it hurts customers who are willing to

pay more for their calls if the quality can be enhanced.



Complaints

Let’s have a look at few complaints from Vodafone customers

“I have some dispute with vodafone [Previously Hutch] from April 2007 about excess

charges made by them and I have not paid the same and written a letter to them

explain the content but so far up-to-day they have not given me any reply. now

vodafone exist and they are demanding the balance amount and I have told them

about the fact but they told me on the phone that they can’t do any thing now as

Hutch is now no more. Then i told them, why are you demanding the money? only

replying that pending bill and make the payments. I have mail them, send the fax,

send the letter by currier as they have disconnected my outgoing from

14/09/2009.They have send me the statement of Invoice from 10/12/1998 to

11/09/2009, in which it shows excess payment made by me. Now I am asking them to

clarify me about adjustments you are showing, they are not willing to help me and

demanding to make the payment. I have received the bin for Sept,09 on 18/09/09 and

made the payment on 19/9/09.I am paying the bill regularly in time and before the

due date, even though they are charging me Rs.100/- as mise charge. Now, can you

help me to solve the problem. If you want, I can send you all the papers so you can

understand my difficulties .Hoping your reply,”

Thanking you,

Yours Truly, H K shah

Here Mr. Shah is clearly not happy with the service that is being provided to him by

Vodafone and has resorted to complaints on public forum.



Vodafone CRM Model

According to us for every customer of Vodafone the stages of his experience would be

the following with the right one being of Mr. Shah.

Stage 1, Interested: When the person comes to you as a prospect and he / she may or

may not choose your product.

Stage 2, invested: This is when the conversion from potential to actual has taken place

and the customer has bought the promises made by the company along with the service.

Stage3, Committed: Here the customer remains loyal to the company even in wake of

competition.

Stage4, Engaged: The customer needs to be properly treated and kept happy for him to

be attached to the company forever and this is where the problem occurred with Mr.

Shah as he was using the connection for two years but then he had problem with the

company regarding the bills etc. So instead of moving to level 5 in this case Mr. Shah

might be thinking of changing the operator altogether.



Stage 5, Embedded: This is achieved generally after 4 years of the first purchase i.e. a

company had retained its customers for 4 or more years happily. Of course it varies with

product to product but for a mobile operator it would be roughly 3 – 4 years.

The steps company is taking to make its customers more satisfied especially after the

take over of Hutch by Vodafone.



Conclusion:

We believe that Vodafone has done justice to it Customers if we consider the scale to

be relative but there are lot of areas where it can improve, some of them are mentioned

in the report and some of them are already acknowledged by the company and intends

to rectify. One of the main problems facing Vodafone as well as other service providers

is the price war which is hurting their pocket and in turn lowering the quality of service

on a industry-wide basis some more than others. But after the introduction of number

portability the scenario might very well change and the service quality may reach the

desired level which it is presently not for sure compared to the developed nations.

group 9 vodafone - crm practices

Documents

customer of vodafone

vodafone promiselets

scale vodafone

vodafone connections

vodafone group plc

vodafone essar india

study vodafone scores

company brand