The document summarizes a study comparing the perceived service quality of five major Indian telecom providers: Airtel, Idea, Tata Docomo, BSNL, and Reliance. The study surveyed 147 customers and used the SERVQUAL scale to measure service quality across five dimensions. The results showed that Airtel, Idea, and Tata Docomo received significantly higher service quality ratings than BSNL and Reliance. In particular, BSNL and Reliance scored lowest on reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. The conclusion is that BSNL and Reliance need to focus on improving customer-oriented services to better compete.

1. Authors:
Aprajita Rana
Dr. Kapil Arora

2. Service Quality
 Bitner, Booms and Mohr -‘the consumer’s overall
impression of the relative inferiority / superiority of
the organisation and its services’
 Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry- ‘a function of the
differences between expectation and performance
along the quality dimensions’

3. Indian telecom Industry
 960.90 million subscribers
 929.37 Million wireless
 Mobile Number Portability (MNP) launched on
20th January, 2011
 Mobile Number Portability requests from 50.16
Million wireless subscribers
 Declining Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
 MP Consumer Base–Idea highest 143,30,482,
then Reliance, Airtel, BSNL, Tata (TRAI May 12)

4. Objectives
 To compare the consumer perception of service
quality of the five popular telecom service providers –
Airtel, BSNL, Idea, Tata Docomo and Reliance
 Compare the service quality of the five service
providers along five dimensions: reliability,
responsiveness, responsiveness, assurance, empathy,
and tangibles

5. Literature Review
 Parasuraman, et. al (1988) conducted empirical studies in
several industry sectors to develop and refine SERVQUAL, a
multiple-item instrument to quantify customers’ assessment
of a company’s SQ
 Van-der-Wal, et. Al (2002) used SERVQUAL to investigate
service quality in mobile telecommunication in South Africa.
They concluded that the instrument was reliable and could
be used to assess service quality in telecommunication
industry.
 Stafford (1999)- critical to the improvement of service
quality is the determination of those service quality
characteristics considered important by customers.
 Bolton and Drew (1991)- customer-perceived service
quality is an important success factors of business
competition.

6. SERVQUAL
 Multiple-item instrument to quantify customers’
assessment of a company’s SQ. Measures SQ
along five dimensions:
 Tangibles: Physical facilities, equipment and
appearance of personnel.
 Reliability: Ability to perform the promised
service dependably and accurately.
 Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers
and provide prompt service.
 Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees
and their ability to inspire trust and confidence.
 Empathy: Caring, individualised attention the
firm provides its customers.

7. Research Methodology
 SERVQUAL: 22-item scale was employed
 147 respondents
 Cronbach alpha: 0.888, indicating good consistency
among the items
 Consumers of Airtel, BSNL, TATA, Reliance and Idea
surveyed
 One-way ANOVA used to compare SQ of these service
providers

8. Distribution of Respondents
Service
Providers No. of respondents Percent
Bharti Airtel 41 27.9
Idea Cellular 33 22.4
Tata Docomo 20 13.6
Reliance
Communication 27 18.4
BSNL 26 17.7
Total 147 100.0

9. Airtel
26
41 Idea
27 Tata
Docomo
33 Reliance
20
BSNL

10. Demographic characteristics
Gender No. of respondents Percent
Male 79 53.7
Female 68 46.3
Total 147 100.0
No. of
Education respondents Percent
Under graduate 55 37.4
Graduate 28 19.0
Post Graduate 64 43.5
Total 147 100.0

11. No. of Respondents
68
79
Male
Female
64
55 Under graduate-55
Graduate-28
Post Graduate-64
28

12. Results
Service Service Quality Mean
Providers Score
Bharti Airtel 110.2195
Idea 106.4242
Tata Docomo 104.1000
BSNL 87.8462
Reliance Comm. 86.6296

13. Results:
120 Airtel
100
80 Idea
60
40
Tata
20
Docomo
0
BSNL
Service
Quality Mean Reliance
Score

14. Results
 No significant difference in the quality
perception of Airtel, Idea and Tata Docomo
consumers. (Group A)
 No significant difference in SQ perception
of BSNL and Reliance consumers. (Group B)
 Significant difference in SQ perception
between Airtel, Idea, Tata (Group A) and
BSNL, Reliance (Group B) consumers.

15. Results
 Tangibles: Similar result, Idea had highest
values, BSNL the lowest
 Reliability: Similar result, Airtel –best and BSNL worst
 Responsiveness: Tata Docomo-best and Reliance
worst
 Assurance: Airtel and Idea- Better, Reliance provides
least assurance (Airtel, Idea, BSNL and Tata Docomo
significantly differ from Reliance)
 Empathy: Airtel –best and Reliance worst

16. Conclusion
 Airtel, Idea and Tata Docomo customers perceive
better service quality than BSNL and Reliance
customers.
 BSNL and Reliance need to focus on customer-
oriented services.
 MNP provides a way out to customers perceiving poor
service quality
 Declining Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) and
increase in MNP requests are threats to the providers
which can only be overcome by efforts to improve the
service quality perceptions

17. Thank you