User's perceived service quality of mobile communications: experience from Ethiopia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the causal relationship between service quality dimensions and overall service quality, and to identify service quality gaps as experienced by the subscribers of the mobile services of Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC). Design/methodology/approach – The seven modified dimensions of SERVQUAL, namely tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, network aspect, and convenience were used to measure customers' perceptions and expectations of mobile telecommunications services by drawing a sample of 220 respondents using stratified random sampling. Findings – Overall service quality of mobile communications was perceived to be as below average by over half (52.7 percent) of the respondents, followed by less than one‐third (28 percent) who mentioned it as average, and about one‐fifth (19.3 percent) as above average. The highest service quality gap was reported with the added dimension of network aspect, while the lowest score obtained was for convenience. Finally, two regression models predicting overall service quality with reliability and network aspect dimensions were obtained. Research limitations/implications – The scope (geographical) of the study is limited to the subscribers of mobile services of Addis Ababa (capital city of Ethiopia). Practical implications – Data representing customer perceptions and expectations with mobile services in delivering quality have been used to identify (in terms of quality gaps) areas needing improvement. ETC should concentrate on providing superior reliability, particularly, accuracy and dependability in mobile services. An extended focus on the items of network aspect dimension (transmission quality and network coverage) is also helpful in improving customers' perceived quality of mobile services. Originality/value – Since most quality features in the SERVQUAL scale are related with customer handling, this study incorporated, and investigated further, the added two dimensions of network aspect and service convenience for their contribution to overall service quality of mobile communications.