The happy Indian mobile user…
With the large number of global and national telecom giants vying for a larger share of the exploding cellular market, Indian mobile users have never had it so good. Today the Indian mobile user is a very happy (possibly pampered) subscriber, enjoying the benefits of world-class mobile technology, paying one of the lowest rates anywhere in the world.
While it will be obviously more difficult to be able to build and retain customer loyalty in this scenario, it becomes all the more important. At this growth stage of the Indian mobile industry, the challenge for the service providers has been to maintain a pulse on the changing expectations of the evolving Indian cellular user and continuously meeting these expectations.
In order to gain insights into the mind of the 'maturing' Indian cellular user and to study the manner and extent to which Indian cell phone companies have managed to meet customer expectations, NFO India, has been tracking the Indian cellular user since the cellular explosion, three years ago.
CellTrack is an annual study conducted by NFO India, part of the NFO World Group, among cellular users across the country. CellTrack is designed to track the Indian cellular user, to better understand the state of the 'subscriber-service provider' relationship, and to track the performance of the cellular service providers in fostering these relationships.

Intensity of subscriber retention….
CellTrack, uses the TRI*M Stakeholder Satisfaction and Retention model, which a proprietary system of the NFO World Group.
Using TRI*M we have been measuring and quantifying, the state of the 'subscriber- service provider' relationship, while continuously monitoring the changing expectations of the Indian mobile user over the past three years.

The TRIM Index, is a measure of the 'intensity of retention', and takes into consideration both the subscribers' level of satisfaction with the service provider as well has his level of retention and loyalty towards the service provider.
The continuously increasing TRIM Index, for the Indian cellular subscribers indicate that the efforts of the service providers in terms of the large investments being made in improving infrastructure and their marketing and communication initiatives, seems to have paid off. The overall subscriber retention score as measured by the TRI*M Index, has continuously increased from 55 in CellTrack1 (November 2000) to more than 71/72 for Post and Pre paid subscribers respectively in CellTrack3 (June 2002). The loyalty levels, have been improving year on year and today, with a 70+ index, the Indian subscribers are in the 'retained' category.

Understanding subscriber typology…
When trying to unravel the niceties of the 'subscriber-service provider' relationship even further, we looked at the level of satisfaction as well as level of retention, independently, and then grouped the subscribers into four categories based on their level of satisfaction and retention. Thus, based on satisfaction and loyalty, we classified the subscribers as 'Apostles', who are satisfied and loyal, 'Mercenaries' are satisfied but those who have not found any compelling reason to remain loyal, 'Hostages', loyal (not necessarily out of choice) but dissatisfied, and 'Terrorists' are dissatisfied and disloyal.
We can also see how the strength and the quality of the 'subscriber-service provider' relationship, has been improving over the years.

The proportion of 'Apostles' which was only around a third (33 per cent) in November 2001 (CellTrack1) has been steadily increasing and today (CellTrack3 June 2002) almost every second (47 per cent among post paid and 49 per cent among pre-paid) cellular user is an 'Apostle' of his cell phone company. This would indicate that the service providers did manage to get some things right, and to some extent were able to understand the needs of the market and have been able to improve their delivery on those aspects that matters to their subscribers. The continuous efforts by the service providers have had a positive impact on the 'subscriber-service provider' relationship. This has led to an increase in the level of satisfaction as well as retention and loyalty levels among their subscribers.

The increase in loyalty and retention levels is further established by the steady decrease in the proportion of 'Mercenaries', from the 25 per cent levels in CellTrack1, to 15 per cent and below in CellTrack3. (13 per cent among Post-Paid and 15 per cent among Pre-Paid subscribers)
The service providers have been successful in strengthening the 'subscriber-service provider' bonds, by anticipating and meeting customer expectations. Surprisingly though, the loyalty levels are similar among both the Pre-Paid and Post-Paid subscribers today.
In November 2000, when the total subscriber base in the country was less than three million and there were only two service providers to choose from in most circle, a third (31 per cent) of the subscribers were the very disgruntled, and disloyal 'terrorists'- just waiting to switch. Although this proportion of 'terrorists' have dropped since then to a little over a fifth (21 per cent) in June 2002, this is still a sizeable proportion of subscribers with a high propensity to churn.
Looking at the TRIM Index scores and the changing customer typology, what is becoming clear, is that, by and large, Indian service providers seem to have successfully kept their finger on the pulse of the market. Further more this has been done in the context of an increasingly competitive market scenario.

What is driving customer loyalty…
Besides measuring the 'intensity' of the 'subscriber- service provider' relationship, we have also been tracking what is driving this relationship. In order to understand what factors are most important in the mind of the cellular subscriber, we need to go beyond what the subscriber states as being important, in order to differentiate the obvious hygiene factors from those that are truly driving the relationship.
The TRI*M grid classifies the elements based on the subscribers stated importance, as well as the impact of the performance of the element on subscriber retention. Thus all the product and service elements are grouped as 'Motivators', 'Hygienics', 'Hidden Opportunities' and 'Potential Savers' as described in the figure.

Not only can we identify these 'drivers' but we can also monitor the change in the relevance of the different aspects of the mobile service in the mind of the subscriber from time to time.

When tracking the changing expectations with the help of the TRIM grid, it was seen that, although 'quality of network' (depth of coverage) has always been and continues to be a 'Motivator' the extent of coverage (the foot print) has now become a 'Hygienics' in most circles. Today, coverage within the city and within the circle, are factors that subscribers have come to take for granted. Improvements in the delivery on various aspects of the 'Network and Coverage' by the service providers is probably the single most important contributor to improving subscriber loyalty over time. More particularly, it was improvements in coverage, both within cities and within the circle as well as on highways that was most evident to the subscribers.
With all the big 'brands' in the cellular business, company image was, and continues to be a strong 'Motivator' with most service providers having been successful in building a very positive and favourable corporate image among the subscribers.
However the most interesting change was noticed in the attitude of the subscribers to many of the 'value added services' (VAS) and 'Short Messaging Service'. The subscribers were indifferent 'VAS' and 'SMS' to start with these elements in the 'Potential Savers' quadrant. These elements were identified as 'Hidden Opportunities' in CellTrack2 and are today 'Motivators' in the more mature cellular circles.
Tariffs and pricing, although stated as being extremely important by subscribers, has always been and continues to be a 'Hygenics' and does not really help to differentiate service providers in the minds of the subscribers. In spite of the drastic fall in the service charges, the customers are still seeking further discounts and cuts in service charges.
Similarly, aspects related to billings are things that the customers have always stated as extremely important. However the service provider's ability to deliver accurate, easy to understand bills on time, are things taken for granted by subscribers.
Softer aspects related to the Customer Care interactions are 'Motivators' and becoming increasingly important to subscribers. Customer Care along with the quality of VAS and SMS services offered could possibly determine brand choice in the future.

The author heads Stakeholder Relationship Management (SHM), a specialised division of NFO MBL India

CellTrack Background and Methodology
CellTrack is a tracking study among cellular subscribers across the country, to compare and monitor the performance of cellular service providers in terms of subcriber retention, and identify the drivers for retention.
Started in Oct-Nov 2000, the study has completed three tracks, CellTrack1 in Nov 2000, CellTrack2 in Nov 2001 and CellTrack3 in June 2002.
The study is based on the TRI*M Stakeholder Relationship Management System - a popular system among Telecom Service Providers across the world
The study is conducted among a large sample of subscribers across all circles that account for up to 80% of the subscriber base at that point in time. For example, CellTrack3 was conducted among 3255 cellular subscribers across 30 different service providers in the top 14 cellular circles (constituting more than 90% of the country’s cellular subscriber base). Inthe case of state level circles, the circle headquarter city was selected to represent the circle and the survey was done in that city only.