Customer Perception of Service Quality, Price Fairness and Brand-image of Telecommunication Service Providers in Ghana and Its Impact on Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

Abstract

The rapid development and aggressive competition in the marketing segment in the telecommunication network industry coupled with increasing emergence of new service providers in Ghana has called for strategies aiming at enhancing and optimizing the customer loyalty of existing customer as well attracting newly potential customers. It is against this background that Customer loyalty has taken the center stage in the telecommunication network marketing. Motivated by this, the paper examined the extent to which customer perceptions on service quality, service price fairness and brand image of the telecommunication service providers in Ghana influence customer loyalty. A total sample of two hundred and fifteen (215) customers of the telecommunication service providers in three regions in Ghana were randomly selected for the study. The structural equation modeling with the Smart PLS-SEM computer software version 3.0 was used to analysis the data collected. The results revealed that, there is a positive significant impact of customer perceptions on service quality, service price fairness, and brand image customer loyalty. There is also a positive significant impact of customer perceptions on service quality, service price fairness, and brand image on customer satisfaction. The mediation mechanism analysis also confirmed that customer satisfaction served as a partial mediation between customer perceptions on service quality, service price fairness, and brand image and customer loyalty. The study recommends that, Telecommunication network providers in Ghana place particular emphasis on improving their network, pricing, branding, coverage, connection, voice call, and overall network quality to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty . Keywords: Telecommunication Network Providers, Ghana, Customer Loyalty, Customer perception DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/75-02 Publication date: January 31 st 2021