Mobile Customer Satisfaction in South Africa Falls in 2014

South African consumers’ satisfaction with mobile network service providers has declined since 2014, with consumers giving the mobile networks industry a satisfaction score of 75.4 out of 100, according to South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi).

Still, that performance is among the world’s “best,” in a product category that nevertheless ranks near the very bottom of industries.

Relative to scores in other nations, South Africa is in line with “best” scoring mobile industries in other countries such as Portugal (75), Turkey and the United Kingdom (74), South Korea (73) and the United States at 72.

But customer satisfaction with virtually every communications service is low to quite low in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index survey, for example.

Customer satisfaction scores for subscription TV, Internet, mobile and fixed line telephone service, plus computer software, collectively dipped 3.4 percent to an ACSI score of 68.8 on a 0 to 100 scale, the lowest level in seven years.

Some segments fared worse than others. Customer satisfaction with subscription TV service dropped to 63, the absolute worst score among 43 industries covered by the Index.

But Internet access service, which one might think would fare better, had the same score of 63, at the bottom of the index, across industries.

The SAcsi surveyed 2 195 randomly selected customers of Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and a category called “other” (that includes Telkom Mobile and smaller carriers. With the exception of Cell C which showed a small improvement, each of the brands received lower scores than last year.

Vodacom emerged as industry leader with a score of 76.7 out of 100; MTN was on par with the industry average at a score of 75.6. Both Cell C and “other” scored below par at 72.9 and 69.4 respectively.

 

There were no changes in the overall level of expectations for the large network providers compared to last year’s results.

Perceived value, which describes the perception of price given the quality and the perceived quality given the price, is four points lower at 74.8 out of 100.

The net promoter score which indicates the likelihood of customers to recommend a particular brand, has decreased significantly across the industry, from 38 percent in 2013 to 31 percent at the end of 2014.