Students’ Satisfaction with Mobile Phone Services at National University of Lesotho

Abstract

The study examines the factors that influence National University of Lesotho (NUL) students’ satisfaction with the services they receive from mobile telecommunications industry. Customer satisfaction is important in that satisfied customers form the foundation of a successful service provider because it leads to repeat purchases, brand loyalty, as well as positive word of mouth that may further improve financial performance of the preferred service provider. A self-administered, structured questionnaire is used as a data collection tool for this study and a non-probability convenience sampling technique is used to select the respondents. The results show that 37 percent of students have changed their first service provider. The major reason suggested for changing the first service provider is poor network quality followed by high call charges of the first service provider. The results further indicate that there is a positive relationship between network availability, customer care services, call charges and students’ satisfaction. The findings also reveal that network availability is the most important component that determines students satisfaction followed by customer care services and call charges. Moreover, it was found that irrespective of mobile phone service provider, on average (50 percent) students are satisfied with their service providers. On the other hand, with respect to service provider, it was found that students who are Econet Telecom Lesotho subscribers are more satisfied than those who are Vodacom Lesotho subscribers. Lastly, the findings of the study show that overall satisfaction of male respondents is not significantly different from that of female respondents. This implies that gender is not an important variable that can be used for market segmentation in order to enhance the level of students’ satisfaction at NUL.

Keywords: Customer Care, Customer Satisfaction, Service Provider, Subscribers, Telecommunication Sector, Lesotho