New research from Roy Morgan shows that more than three quarters of mobile-phone users were satisfied with their service provider over the year to July 2017. This is an improvement from 73.4 per cent in 2014, but down marginally from 77.4 per cent in 2016.
Very little separates the satisfaction of the top five service providers, with amaysim the leader on 81.6 per cent, followed by Optus on 79 per cent, Virgin on 78.4 per cent, Telstra on 76.3 per cent and Vodafone on 76 per cent. The satisfaction with ALDI Mobile was further behind, on 64.3 per cent.
Over the past 12 months, amaysim was the biggest improver, up 4.2 per cent points to 81.6 per cent. The other two major providers to show improvement were Virgin (up 3.5 per cent points) and Optus (up 0.9 per cent points). Telstra showed a marginal decline (down 0.3 per cent points), while Vodafone was down by 2.6 per cent points and ALDI Mobile down 8.9 per cent points.
Roy Morgan Research Industry Communications Director Norman Morris says the research shows that competition among the leading mobile-phone service providers is very tight in terms of customer satisfaction.
“This presents a major challenge for these companies if they are to obtain a competitive advantage on this important metric,” he said.
In addition to measuring satisfaction ratings, which are a key factor in customer retention, Roy Morgan Research has also analysed the factors involved when choosing a service provider.
“This is an area where there are major differences between providers, for example, customers who choose Telstra overwhelmingly do so for reasons relating to better coverage, whereas other major providers are selected primarily for price-related reasons,” Mr Morris said.
Roy Morgan also has very detailed data covering 20 factors relating to choice of provider, and extensive coverage on many aspects of mobile-phone usage.
“The comprehensive data available on mobile-phone ownership and usage is invaluable for anyone involved directly in this industry or in the much broader digital environment,” Mr Morris said.
The findings are from Roy Morgan’s Single Source survey of more than 50,000 consumers per year.
