1

Assignment on : Positioning approach of Grameen Phone

Submitted To:

Abureza Muhammad. Muzareba

Course Instructor of Marketing Management

Department of Business Administration

Submitted By:

Golam Khairul Omam

Id No: MBA 021 080 030

Batch: 43rd

NORTH SOUTH UNIVERSITY

2

Executive Summary

As a market leader, GrameenPhone is continuously coming up with new ideas regarding its

products and services. They specially concentrate on developing the best network

backbone availabe in tele-communication industry we have now a days. In this project we

try to focuse on the factors behind the core idea of Grameen Phone’s positioning strategies

towards it’s target customers.

In addition of its positioning term , Grameen Phone recently try to focusing on it’s

differentiated services, such as, the non-voice services as because the company knows in

near future, voice based services will reach to the maturity stage which will make the

business growth constant to some extents. Hence, the company is trying to maintain the

leading position in non-voices services as well like SMS, Push-Pull, and Information

related services at the early growing stage. These services are working as a building block

to increase GP’s service value.

Coming up with innovative service is easier than making subscribers aware of services.

Hence through this report I have tried to analyze the present situation of the cellular phone

industry in Bangladesh and GP’s positioning strategy in there to find out the services that

Grameen phone is presently providing to its valued customers & their satisfaction level to

further established other positioning attributes. 15 million people out of 140 million total

citizen of Bangladesh are presently using cell phone; it means that out of every 9 people

3

one is using cell phone. In the third world country like Bangladesh the amount of users is

amazing. Grameenphone holds almost 61% market share of telecom industry that is out of

every 10 users 6 belongs to Grameenphone. So GrameenPhone marketing strategy should

be “Profitable growth & expanding market share through satisfying existing customers”. I

have also made a comparative service analysis of various cellular phone companies in

Bangladesh and drawn some valuable recommendation to GrameenPhone to be the market

leader in future in this competitive market.

A comprehensive survey was conducted to know about GP’s present position in the market

and its present service condition that is providing to its valued customers. The survey

report shows that Grameen phone is still a market leader in this industry but as it is

becoming more competitive day by day so Grameen phone should revise its service

packages, quality with more conveniently for the customers.

Among the other cellular phone companies GrameenPhone has some unique competitive

advantages in this industry in Bangladesh so if it is possible for GP to provide better

services with continuous innovative products it will add value to the company which is a

part of their positioning implementational movements. Otherwise, in the long run new

innovation services will not give its ultimate success.

4

Back ground of Grameen Phone

In a highly populated country like Bangladesh, telecommunication can play a vital role to boost the economy and social level of people. The introduction of cellular phones has dramatically changed the lives of businesses and individuals.Grameenphone Ltd., the largest telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh, received its operating license in November 1996 and started its service from March 26, 1997. Now, after 11 years of successful operations, Entrepreneurship at MIT . He was inspired by the Grameen Bank micro credit model Grameenphone is the largest mobile phone service provider in Bangladesh, with more than 28 million subscribers as of November 2008. The idea of providing mobile phone facility to rural areas in Bangladesh was originally conceived by Iqbal Quadir, who is currently the founder and director of the Legatum Center for Development and and envisioned a business model where a cell phone can serve as a source of income. After leaving his job as an investment banker in the United States, Quadir traveled back to Bangladesh, after meeting and successfully raising money from a New York based investor and philanthropist Joshua Mailman, and worked for three years gaining support from various organizations including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank and the Norwegian telephone company, Telenor. He was finally successful in forming a consortium with Telenor and Grameen Bank to establish Grameenphone. Quadir remained a shareholder of Grameenphone until 2004. Basically Grameenphone is a joint venture enterprise between Telenor (62%), the largest telecommunications service provider in Norway with mobile phone operations in 12 other countries, and Grameen Telecom Corporation (38%), a non-profit sister concern of the internationally acclaimed micro-credit pioneer Grameen Bank. Over the years, Grameenphone has always been a pioneer in introducing new products and services in the local market. GP was the first company to introduce GSM technology in Bangladesh when it launched its services in March 1997.

There is a growing trend of workers turning from farming to other occupations, the need for mobiles is increasing among the thousands of impoverished villages. The overall efficiency of other business has increased as an aftermath of the government's decision of deregulating the telecommunications sector, which until the late 1980s had been a state monopoly.

Privatization of the telecommunications sector began in 1989, when Sheba and BRTA were awarded 25-year licenses to install and operate fixed-wire lines and wireless services in rural areas. The same year, Pacific Telecom Bangladesh got the government's permission to launch the country's first cellular phone and paging service sold under brand name CityCell in collaboration with a Hong Kong-based company. The company targeted only the higher class of the society.

5

During that time price of mobile was above Tk 50,000/=. Naturally, the growth of the industry was too slow. CityCell had a virtual monopoly until 1996, when the government gave licenses to three more companies to operate cell phones in Bangladesh. So, the government decided to bring more companies in the market and break the monopoly.

After careful evaluation the government decided to provide three licenses to GrameenPhone, TM International (AkTel), and Sheba Telecom (Banglalink). Only CityCell is using Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, AkTel, GrameenPhone, Banglalink these three companies are using GSM (Global System for Mobile) technology. GSM is the most popular mobile telecommunication technology in the world. About 60% of the cell phone users of the world use GSM technology.

These three new companies entered the market, not only helped trim down over-dependence on BTTB's fixed-line system, but also made mobile phones cheaper and easier to get. The price of a cell phone came down from $2,000 to as low as $100, depending on the features of the handset and SIM price is only Tk.200-300.

A definite development has been observed in the Business Market with comparatively high expectations. Customer maturity and anticipation regarding technology has increased over time.

Rumors regarding new entrants have groomed expectations in the market.

Consequently, people are expecting cheaper handsets with lowered airtime.

The existing Cellular phone companies in Bangladesh are CityCell (Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited), GrameenPhone Ltd., AkTel Ltd(Robi). Banglalink and TeleTalk. Among these company Gra meenPhone, AkTel(Robi) and Banglalink adopted GSM technology andCitycell the market pioneer started with CDMA technology.

6

Vision of Grameen Phone

The vision of Grameen Phone is to exists to helps its customers to get the full benefit of communications services in their daily lives. GP wanst to make it easy for customers to get what they want, when they want it. Their major values are , GP never forget that it is trying to make its customers' lives easier, it wants to be a partner in the development of the community ,it is about delivery, not over promising - actions not words , it is respectful and professional in regard to all our interactions, both internally and externally.

Mission of Grameen Phone

Grammenphone is the only reliable means of communication that brings the people of Bangladesh close to their loved ones and important things in their lives through unparalleled network, relevant innovation and services.

Market offerings (Product, Size/Type & price)

7

Djuice: Target Market: Youth Product Type: Prepaid Price: 150 Focus on music, messaging Community to appeal to the Youth Completely separate from the Grameenphone brand.

Shohoj Package: Target Market: Corporate Level Product Type: Prepaid Price: BDT 150 Offering you will be able to talk to over 23million GrameenPhone numbers at a l ow rate

Aapon Package: Target Market: Family Members Product type: Prepaid Price: BDT 150 You will be a ble to talk to over 23million GrameenPhone numbers at a l ow rate.

Bondhu Package: Target Market: Friends & FnF Product Type: Prepaid Price: BDT 150 This package with the highest number of F&Fs allows you to talk to your near and

dear ones at the l owest rate. This package gives you the privilege of calling 7FnFnumbers at Tk 0.49/min.

GP explore Postpaid: Target Market: High Income Mass and Professionals Product Type: Postpaid Price: BDT 650 Offering competitive tariff with features such as unlimited internet, flat call tariff,

easy bill payment facilities etc.

GP Business Solutions: Target Market: Business

8

Product Type: Postpaid & Prepaid Price: BDT500 Customized solutions for Corporations, SME and SOHO businesses Provides

closed user group functionality, business messaging, Blackberry services, priority customer service e tc.

The supplementary Services Internet Bill Pay Cell Bazaar Stock Information, Instant Messaging, SMS Based Alerts/Services Music Cricket Updates Web SMS Mobile Backup Countries, international roaming, international sms Value added services Flexi load Ring Tone Download

Network And Network Coverage OF Grameen Phone:

9

GrameenPhone aims to build a full range of service all over the country. The company has

targeted to build extensive network all over the country. For better coverage, GP has taken

1600 Km fiber optic cable network leased from Bangladesh Railway. In April 2004, GP

had 750 base stations. Now till Oct’05, it has 1750 base stations. Furthermore, considering

the subscribers’ need of quality network and extensive coverage, the company is planning

to set up another thousand base stations in the following year. Recently GP has doubled its

speech quality 900GSM MHz to 1800GSm MHz. Already the company has expanded its

network to 61 districts out of 64 districts and 400 upazillas out of 460 upazillas. It’s the

only company which covers the most of the land areas with its net work. Approximately

52% land area is covered by GrameenPhone’s network. In over all, GrameenPhone offers

the most competitive network facility to its subscribers, and continue improving it.

Existing coverage areas are divided into six zones according to the divisional boundary.

These are

• Dhaka

• Sylhet

• Chittagong

• Rajshahi

• Khulna

• Barisal

10

Figure : Net Work coverage of GrameenPhone.

The zone in which a subscriber is registered with GrameenPhone is that subscriber's Home

Zone, and all other zones are Remote Zones. Area under GP net work covered

11

Marketing Concepts:

The strategic plan defines the company’s overall mission and objectives and hopes to

achieve company’s objectives. Through market segmentation, targeting and positioning the

company decides which customers it will serve and how. The company also designs a

marketing mix made up of factors under its control product, price, place, promotion.

Strategy of GrameenPhone

GrameenPhone’s basic strategy is coverage of both urban and rural areas. In contrast to the

“island” strategy followed by some companies, which involves connecting isolated islands

of urban coverage through transmission links, GrameenPhone builds continuous coverage,

cell after cell. While the intensity of coverage may vary from area to area depending on

market conditions, the basic strategy of cell-to-cell coverage is applied throughout

GrameenPhone’s network.

In the report, we are going to focus of Grameenphone is to segment, target the potential

customers and to position of their profit oriented products. The relevant information is

given below:

A) Market Segmentation and offerings of Grameenphone:

The marketing concept calls for understanding customers and satisfying their needs better

than the competition. But different customers have different needs, and it rarely is possible

to satisfy all customers by treating them alike. Market segmentation is the

identificationoportions of the market that are different from one another. Segmentation

allows the firm to better satisfy the needs of its potential customers.

1. Clearer understanding of the needs and wants of selected customer groups.

12

2. More effective positioning.

3. Greater precision in selecting promotional vehicles and techniques

Bases for Segmentation:

Consumer markets can be segmented on the following customer characteristics.

1.Geographic2.Demographic3.Psychographic4. Behavioral

1. Geographic

1.1 Network:

Grameenphone have the widest network coverage in the country. It has changed the

communication structure of the country and it can be compared with communication

revolution. It is the first company in the country that has brought the mobile service to the

mass level. GP's network is very robust and undoubtedly the best in the country. But it

suffers from severe network congestion during festivals and celebrations when people

badly need smooth communication. This is because, a big number of people moves to rural

side during festivals, which is very difficult to cater from any operator's perspective. As a

result, people face problem during those times. But it is very difficult to ensure smooth

network in rural areas considering only 10-15 days’ (out of 365 days) additional pressure

derived from non-regular members (visitors) of that area. This is a worldwide problem for

the Telco operators. GP has the highest number of base stations throughout the country.

GP covers the most. GP's customer service is one of the cheapest among all in the country.

13

It is a 24/7 customer service. Customer waiting time in queue is also minimum in

comparison to industry standard. GP Customer Service caters highest numbers of

customers’ everyday regardless any industry in the country.

2. Demographic

2.1 Age:

Djuice: a youth based mobile to mobile connectivity within Bangladesh. Djuice was

launched in Bangladesh by Grameenphone on the 14th of April, 2005 i.e. the Bengali New

Year. Ever since the launch djuice has seen a big warm response from the crowd. Within

two years djuice Bangladesh had enlisted around 2 million subscribers. On the 14th of

April, 2007 djuice Bangladesh shed its old skin to put up itsnew identity which a part of

the worldwide re-branding process of djuice.

Smile Package: Smile package which is a mobile to mobile

connectivity within Bangladesh. It is the most popular product

2.2 Occupation:

Public call office (PCO): a package exclusively designed for people

operating public phone booths who basically need low call rate.

Business Solution: a complete, quality business communications

service designed especially for the business community in Bangladesh.

At office or on the move – stay connected through Business Solutions.

14

3. Psychographic

3.1 Social class, Lifestyle, Personality: X-plore product

Nationwide

and international mobile and landline connectivity. Grameenphone introduced this

premium service for the first time in Bangladesh and now provide International Roaming

service to its own subscribers traveling abroad as well as to foreign operators’ subscribers

traveling in Bangladesh. For the first time in Bangladesh in July 2006, Grameenphone

launched Roaming Services (both GSM and EDGE/GPRS) with CAMEL Phase II for Pre

paid In-bound subscribers. Grameenphone has unique ‘One to One’ relationship with all its

International Roaming partner operators. As of October 2007, GrameenPhone has 325

GSM partner operators in 117 countries in 6 continents and 90 EDGE/GPRS partner

operators in 46 countries. This offer is popular for socially upper class that can bear its

expenses.

4. Behavioral

4.1 Occasion: Greemenphone provide various offer for special occasions, like- Eid

Spesial, Grameenphone brings back the popular Nokia 1200 handset, bundled with GP

prepaid connections, for its prepaid subscribers at an amazingly affordable price. With the

GP- Nokia Eid campaign launch on September 15, 2008, anyone can stay connected with

the largest prepaid subscriber base of the country, at as low as BDT 2,350. The bundle

offer consists of a Nokia 1200 handset at BDT 2,350 and a smile M2M/smile with BTCL

connectivity/djuice/Business Solutions prepaid connection.

4.2 Loyalty Status: Grameenphone connection is not just simply a

mobile connection; “Thank you” bonus is the beginning of a new relationship. Since the

start of our operations in 1997, they believe that a special relationship is formed with each

15

new connection – a time-nurtured attachment that deepens with every call you make and

receive. “Thank you” is the way of expressing their gratitude to their loyal customers.

4.3 Un-loyalty Status: GrameenPhone inspire their customers who

are not loyal, by offering bonus talk time when they use again their un-

used GP-sim.

B)Target Marketing:

Market segmentation reveals the firm’s market segment opportunities. The GrameenPhone

evaluated the various segments and decided to expand their in whole Bangladesh. They

separate their target market because their customers have unique needs & wants.

1.Undifferentiated Marketing

GrameenPhone has merged their pre-paid packages into 2 Smile Prepaid packages SMILE

(Mobile to Mobile) and SMILE (with BTTB connectivity). All Easy clients will be

updated to SMILE (Mobile to Mobile). And all Easy Gold clients will be updated to

SMILE (with BTTB connectivity).

2. Differentiated Marketing

GrameenPhone also follow differentiated marketing strategy. They offers different product

for different segments based on different age, occupation, wants etc.

16

Djuice: a youth based mobile to mobile connectivity within

Bangladesh.

Public call office (PCO): a package exclusively designed for people

operating public phone booths who basically need low call rate.

Business Solution: a complete, quality business communications

service designed especially for the business community in Bangladesh.

At office or on the move – stay connected through Business Solutions.

X-plore product Nationwide and international mobile and landline

connectivity. GrameenPhone introduced this premium service for the first time in

Bangladesh and now provides International Roaming service to its own subscribers

traveling abroad as well as to foreign operators’ subscribers traveling in Bangladesh. For

the first time in Bangladesh in July 2006, GrameenPhone launched Roaming Services

(both GSM and EDGE/GPRS) with CAMEL Phase II for Pre paid In-bound subscribers.

GrameenPhone has unique ‘One to One’ relationship with all its International Roaming

partner operators.

C) Positioning Strategy

By creating product, service, channel, people & image differentiation GrameenPhone reach

the consumer touch point more effectively & efficiently in comparing with their

competitors in the highly competitive telecommunication sector.

1.Product Differentiation:

Network (best, quality): GrameenPhone has the largest network

17

with the widest coverage around the country, bringing 98 percent of the population under

the coverage of its network. The entire GrameenPhone network is also EDGE/GPRS

enabled, allowing GP subscribers to access the Internet from anywhere within its coverage

area. The 10,000 Base Stations are located in about 5,700 sites around the country. The

company has so far invested more than BDT 10,700 crore (USD 1.6 billion) to build the

network infrastructure since its inception in 1997. It has invested over BDT 3,100 crore

(USD 450 million) during the first three quarters of the current year while BDT 2,100

crore (USD 310 million) was invested in 2006 alone. GrameenPhone is implementing an

aggressive roll-out program by installing new network elements with an emphasis on

maintaining quality service. A number of steps are being taken to identify the problems

spots in the network in order to constantly improve quality.

Special efforts are being taken to constantly monitor and ensure network quality in the

urban areas. In Dhaka and other major cities in- building coverage solutions and microcells

have been deployed to provide improved coverage in important high-rise buildings and

busy street junctions.

2.Service Differentiation:

Business Solutions is a complete, quality business communications service from

GrameenPhone – designed especially for the business community in Bangladesh. Their

Business Solutions teams are here to help provide their customers with customized

telecommunications solutions through consultation with their customers.

Messaging Services GrameenPhone have various messaging services allow the customers ways to communicate smarter, faster, more efficiently and more cost- effectively on the go.

SMS (Short Message Service):

Fast and affordable messaging through SMS. Send a SMS to any mobile phone in

Bangladesh and to more than 115 countries with their international SMS service.

Voice SMS:

18

Save time and personalize message through a voice SMS. This service

provides the flexibility to record it up to 120 seconds of audio –

MMS (multimedia messaging):

The MMS service provides to take pictures customize it with animation,

music, video clips and send it across the globe within seconds.

Cell e-mail:

Send emails without a computer. With cell e-mail, Customers have the

facilities to e-mail any GP number through an SMS and email any PC across the globe.

SMS Banking:

Enjoy hassle-free account updates from renowned banks like Standard

Chartered Bank, BRAC Bank, Bank Asia, etc.

Customer Services

GP strive to take care of their customers all telecommunications needs.

Key Account Managers and Customer Service Managers are assigned

to provide prioritized service to Business Solutions subscriber’s right

from the beginning of the relationship.

Priority Service

GP believe in the importance of human touch in the business world. As they step into third

year of providing innovative communication solutions, Business Solutions aims to provide

enhanced priority services.

19

Prioritized Hotline 121

Enjoy prioritized customer service by simply dialing 121. Dedicated customers care

managers are available round-the-clock, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week only to serve.

Business Solutions postpaid subscribers can call 121 absolutely free of cost.

Value Added Services

Take customer business to new heights. Business Solutions pioneers in

introducing state of the art Value Added Service to help.

Missed Call Alert

Missed Call Alert and get SMS notification of the attempted call when

phone was off. To subscribe the service, type on and send to 6222.

Stock Information

The latest updates of the Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchange are now in consumer

palm. To avail this service, go to GP WORLD (wap.gpworld.com), then Business City,

and download the Bull application.

4. Channel Differentiation

GP gain competitive advantage through the way they design their

channels coverage expertise & performance.

3. People Differentiation:

Almost half the total number of employees of GrameenPhone Ltd. today (Tuesday),

participated in the company's biggest customer care program to date.

"This customer service campaign follows up on the "Stay Close" promise from

GrameenPhone. As a caring company, GrameenPhone values its subscribers, stands by

20

them and takes care of them when they need help," explained GrameenPhone CEO Anders

Jensen. Management Team led by, over 2000 employees, representing most of the

functional divisions and all the regional offices of GrameenPhone, spent the day

interacting with the customers in 124 popular local area markets and important public

places across the country. The purpose was to interact with the customers, help them in

solving their mobile phone related queries, and demonstrate Grameenphone's commitment

as a helpful and customer-oriented company.

5. Image Differentiation

GrameenPhone logo differentiates from the other companies. For that reason customer

easily identify them in the market, which is another effective competitive advantages for

GrameenPhone.

Positioning Statement:

Company and Brand Positioning should be summed up in a positioning statement.

GrameenPhone positioning statement is “Stay Close” which explain that customer can

easily express their emotion with their close relatives & friends through using

GrameenPhone.

Positioning in Product Life Cycle:

Like human beings, products also have their own life-cycle. From birth to death human beings pass through various stages e.g. birth, growth, maturity, decline and death. A

21

similar life-cycle is seen in the case of products. The product life cycle goes through multiple phases, involves many professional disciplines, and requires many skills, tools and processes. Product life cycle (PLC) has to do with the life of a product in the market with respect to business/commercial costs and sales measures. To say that a product has a life cycle is to assert four things:

that products have a limited life, product sales pass through distinct stages, each posing different challenges,

opportunities, and problems to the seller,

profits rise and fall at different stages of product life cycle, and

products require different marketing, financial, manufacturing, purchasing, and human resource strategies in each life cycle stage.

1.Market introduction stage

1. costs are high 2. slow sales volumes to start

3. little or no competition

4. demand has to be created

5. customers have to be prompted to try the product

22

6. makes no money at this stag

2. Growth stage

1. costs reduced due to economies of scale 2. sales volume increases significantly

3. profitability begins to rise

4. public awareness increases

5. competition begins to increase with a few new players in establishing market

6. increased competition leads to price decreases

3.Maturity stage

1. costs are lowered as a result of production volumes increasing and experience curve effects

2. sales volume peaks and market saturation is reached

3. increase in competitors entering the market

4. prices tend to drop due to the proliferation of competing products

5. brand differentiation and feature diversification is emphasized to maintain or increase market share

6. Industrial profits go down

4. Saturation and decline stage

1. costs become counter-optimal 2. sales volume decline or stabilize

3. prices, profitability diminish

4. profit becomes more a challenge of production/distribution efficient than increased sales

Grameenphone’s positioning in Product Life Cycle

23

Grameenphone always using different type of marketing strategy in each stages of Product life cycle.In introduction stage Gp uses a lots of investment in networking, promotion and also the price was high.In growth stage increased their sales ,competitors were entered like Robi phone, Banglalinketc.In this stage GP introduce new product feature and distribution channel like djuice,smile business solution etc. In maturity stage GP has to face strong competition with other company’s mature product. Now it is still in mature stage and it is increasing its market share by diversifying the product feature and increasing the marketing positioning cost like 98% area is under network coverage.GP’s subscribers increased form 20 million to 23 million and revenue increased from 61million to 65 millionand profit increased from 15 million to 20 million in 2008 to 2009.Grameenphone yet is the market leader and its main positioning point Network service is best of all.

Customer Satisfaction Factors of GP:

GrameenPhone is a fast growing mobile company. In mobile telecommunication industry, there are direct and indirect factors that influence customer satisfaction. Here focus on the most important factors that influence customer satisfaction at GrameenPhone which relates with after sales services. Airtime:

Air time is the core offering of GrameenPhone, So, quality of communication network availability, etc, are the most important customer satisfaction factors, quality of airtime depends on the ratio of subscribers and transmission base station. It the numbers of subscribers are increased without developing the network, quality of airtime goes down After Sales Services:

After sales services is very important in the mobile telecommunication industry.GP has

extensive after sales customer care tools. Here foucus on these step by step.

1. Helpline:

GP is the first company that introduced 24hours helpline in Bangladesh. In this part of my paper I tried to focus on the existing operations of the helpline service of GP.which will enable us to understand the importance of the helpline service. A GP subscriber needs to dial 122, 121,148 to reach Grameen Phone Helpline. It is a computer aided information base to afford immediate access to the information about the subscribers, but the operations are done manually. After dialing 122, 121,148 subscribers are first welcomed by an automated and standarilized process. Then he needs to wait for few seconds. After that the subscriber reaches the Customer Manager. CM starts the conversation with a greeting. The subscriber explains his/her problems to the CM .

If the inquiry is regarding general information, the customer relations officer does not need to take help of information system. She/he just provides the information and the subscriber keep the phone.

24

There are some queries that are much more personalized and the CM needs to get into the account of that particular subscriber to provide the service. In some case, the subscriber just keeps the complaint/ request and later action is needed to be taken. Customer need to pay TK. 4 per minute to take the service from helpline.

2 Interactive Voice Responses (IVR):

This newly introduced service by GrameenPhone. This is automated helpline service. A GP subscriber needs to dial 123 to reach this service. After that she/he can get information regarding the bill, usage, credit policy, bank name that receives GP’s bill and so on by choosing different options.Itisfree of charge for the first minute, from the second minute the subscriber needs to pay tk.2 per minute.

3. Information Centers:

Most of the problems of the subscribers are solved by the helpline service. But there are some problems that can not be solved there. Subscriber need to come physically to deal with that problems.Grameen Phone has seven customer relation centers and 380 GPSDs which provide services all over the country. These Customer Relation Centers are situated in the prime divisional head quarters like Dhaka, Chittagone, Sylhet, Rajshahi and Khulna and GPSDs situated all most everywhere in Bangladesh. In these information centers the subscribers can come directly with their problems like billing, address change, SIM change, handset problems, etc. These after sales services are very crucial to keep subscribers satisfied regarding GrameenPhone.

Survey Findings:

In order to measure the satisfaction of the customers a series of questions were asked to the customers with the help of a questionnaire, the data from these questions are tabulated below. For clear understanding, the overall satisfaction has been divided into satisfaction with the package and satisfaction with the after sales service. As already mentioned, the survey was conducted among hundred GrameenPhone subscribers, it was conducted in the information center as subscribers from different areas in Dhaka come to this center .

Finding on Analysis

25

Several frequency distribution have been constructed to find the answersregarding the customers perspective of grameen phone line users. By theanalysis. Some limitation of grameen providers have been identified. The mostimportant finding of the analysis is customers have claimed some problem ontheir network system. It is found that some of the customer of grameen hardlygot connected after calling more then 4 or 5 times. This problem happensespecially in case of connecting outside Dhaka . it is found from the analysis oncustomers occupation that the grameen is being more used by the students. Alsothe have been frequently changing their choices regarding mobile serviceproviders. By proper customer care, once they catch this group for longtime,they can better perform in the market. Analysis shows that80% of thecustomers use prepaid lines. One of the significant finding from the analysis isthat customer who use grameen , use the line because of minimum call chargecompared to other. So further study is needed to understand the relatedproblems and the company should offer more facilities to the competitors toincrease their customer and present users satisfaction.

RECOMMENDATION & CONCLUSION

The means to overcome the needs of the customers have been discussed in this chapter. These lead to the various recommendations given above. Hopefully these recommendations will create awareness to GrameenPhone authority to resolve the problems of the customers.

It is already discussed that GrameenPhone is the leading company in the mobile telecommunication industry in Bangladesh. This has been possible because it has a created a superior image in comparison to the other operators. In other words, GP has a clear advantage over competitors.

GrameenPhone has some additional advantageous features in comparisons to its competitors. There is easier access to person to person contract. Another important thing is that GP users are mostly satisfied with the initial price of GP connections and handsets. Before GP’s introduction to the market, mobile phones were virtually out of reach to the

26

major part of the current market. Moreover, GrameenPhone subscribers are happy with the country wide network.

However, there is dissatisfaction among the GP users with the service of the company. Many important factors are acting as reasons behind this overall dissatisfaction. Quality of airtime and network availability is not satisfactory.Grameen Phone connections are difficult to reach sometimes. It so happens that the subscribers used to pay extra money to get the access. This is especially true for prepaid service. It is encouraging that very recently situation has improved to a certain extent bases on the findings in this report. The “Info Centers” of GP are very important for some after sales services. But, there is shortage of capacity of this service, In Dhaka “Info Centers” are located at Gulshan, Dhanmondhi, Mothijheel, Uttara, these four centers cannot cope with the demand of vastly populated Dhaka city. The GP helpline is also an important customer care tool. But it is also in shortage of capacity. Subscribers need to spend significant amount of time to reach the helpline. Behavior of the helpline CM is also sometimes unmanageable. They are to handle continuous queries. So it may so happen at times the CMs cannot keep up smiling voice and amenable behavior.

Most of the subscribers are not happy with the billing rate of GP.They think it is too high in the context of Bangladesh, But they are still using the service as GP is still more easily accessible. Many newer companies are coming up with the lower price; it is thus a great challenge to GP to face, Another significant dissatisfaction of the GP users is that most of the GP connections aremobile to mobile. Access to BTTB is not that good. Wider access with BTTB will boast the subscribers. Most alarming thing is that most of the GrameenPhone users are not loyaltowards the company. If BTTB or any other company comes up with same sort of services,the GP subscribers might switch to that company

Reference

Marketing Management BY Philip Kotler, 11th Edition.

Annual Report of GrameenPhone 2007

www.grameenphone.com

www.wikipedia.com

27