Mobile Number Portability (MNP) - A Good Test for Customer Loyalty
One thing, which we as subscribers, do not prefer, is change of our personal mobile number, especially when we are using it for a few or more years, as we would have shared it with our family & friends and other service providers (e.g. banks, insurance companies, schools, book stores, membership clubs). Any change in our personal mobile number, really causes a lot of inconvenience to us and others, as it really takes a good amount of time and meticulous effort to communicate the change in our mobile numbers and others duly updating their address books/records, for future communication.
It is for this reason, many subscribers like us, end up staying with a specific service provider, even if we are little dissatisfied with their services (e.g. Quality of Service, Price and Customer Service Support). At times, this specific situation allows the service providers to take their customers/subscribers for granted.
One big relief to this problem is the excellent feature Mobile Number Portability (MNP), which allows subscribers to retain their existing mobile numbers when they switch from one mobile service provider to another.
MNP gives the freedom to the subscriber to choose a service provider based on their service offering (e.g. Quality of Service, Price and Customer Service Support). Their freedom of movement is not influenced by the inconveniences and costs that come with changing their mobile numbers.
So, MNP will be a good test for the mobile service providers to check their customer loyalty factor.
If a service provider is really taking care of their customers/subscribers, by understanding their needs, promptly addressing their problems/grievances and offering them good quality of service, at a competitive price, well backed by excellent customer service support, they really need not worry about customer churn, as their customers will be loyal to them and will remain with them.
On the other hand, if the service providers, have been taking their customers for granted, then MNP is a point of concern for them, as it can lead to customer churn, as it opens door for their subscribers to switch over to other service providers, whose service offerings are good and have loyal customer base, who would go out of the way to recommend them to their friends and family.
For subscribers, MNP, again validates the fact that 'Customer is the King', as today they have the freedom or flexibility to retain their mobile numbers, while moving from one service provider to another, based on their customer satisfaction levels.
In fact, MNP creates a highly competitive market, where service providers will go all the out to retain their customers and also fetch new customers (from their competitors), by offering them, what they really want, (i.e.), good quality of service, competitive price and excellent customer service.
I would appreciate your thoughts and views on this topic...
Comments
In fact, operators either could go 'customer value' centric approach to retain their customer or could go 'change deterrent' approach. Given their operating margins and product differentiation battle already going on, I'm personally not too upbeat about any great deal of customer value thing coming out in short term. Of course it depends on the time frame of compliance and also the strictness which the change-over terms are regulated, but I suspect that operators might play change deterrent tactics to extent they could. Also, time only will tell that beyond initial excitement of freedom, if customer see the value of switching over the operator worth all the pain.
And I guess, herre is a great opportunity for operators to leveage potential of social CRM to create compelling customer experience as the differentiator...It is coming up and it is going to play important role for MNP also...:-)
Cheers,
Rakesh
Posted by: Rakesh Mishra | January 17, 2011 7:05 AM
Rakesh, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
It is true that we really have to wait and watch the way Customers would adapt MNP and based on this, how the Service Providers would respond with their new offerings/change in CRM strategy to retain their Customers and acquire new Customers.
Certainly, Social CRM has a major role to play in Customer Loyalty and Mobile Service Providers should make best use of it.
Posted by: Shanmugam Gnanasambandam | January 18, 2011 8:29 AM
Good thoughts Shanmugm. We are discussion this topic with our colleagues today and came across a question. Does this MNP work across the Circles? Say I am an Airtel customer in Mumbai and want to change to Airtel in Karnataka and retain the same number. Is this also possible with MNP? Please share your thoughts
Posted by: Siddesh | January 18, 2011 12:41 PM
Thanks for your interest Siddesh. Currently, the MNP facility is offered only within a given licensed service area/Circle. However, in future, they may extend MNP across service areas /circles. When this facility is offered, we will be able to meet your requirement of retaining the same mobile number across service areas/circles.
Posted by: Shanmugam Gnanasambandam | January 20, 2011 8:22 AM
Shanmugam,
Great insight indeed. And as rakesh mentioned, I too agree that CRM processes needs to be buckled up with one being moving on to next level i.e. social crm.
@Siddesh,
Inter state MNP is very much possible but for the time being, it will only be available within the circle. Since, Inter state is more complex but I definitely this being implemented in near future.
Shanmugam, what's your take?
Posted by: Nishith Gupta | January 20, 2011 6:05 PM
Very nicely done. Here is my experience of MNP. Having been a customer of Airtel for little over 4 years, i began to realize that i as a customer was being taken for granted and services were over a period of time were deteriorating at a very fast rate. Hence the desire to shift and what better opportunity than this... So i went out and sent the SMS to 1900 expecting that i will have all the telecom operators vying for my business and would help me unravel the best options for me.
Interestingly, that dream is still a dream. So far no one established contact and the only people who contacted me were from Airtel asking my reasons for a switch. When i drew their attention to poor service quality with both voice and data, the customer service representative was quick on his feet to offer me a "discount" for poor services for a month. When i asked him, what happens after a month, he quite non challantly utters, you go back to the original plan.
Now this is the state of our customer service orientation. No one talks about a promise of better service and it always is equated with an offer to peddle bad things for a poor price. Its as if, they got caught for poor service and decided to compensate the person for the poor service and move on. And we as customers are also expected to be happy that we extracted our pound of flesh for catching them peddling poor service.
I always thought Customer loyalty was something that you wear as a badge of honour but i guess i am proved wrong.
So have i decided to switch carriers ... ofcourse i have. And its not because Airtel cannot get better but because their customer service needs a real reorientation where they begin to believe that the quality of service is important to people and it is not always about the money!
Posted by: Atul Mathur | February 1, 2011 9:28 AM