Vodafone, the mobile service brand of Vodafone Essar, has emerged as the “Most Admired Mobile Service Brand Online” in India followed by Tata Indicom and Aircel in an pan-India survey conducted by Drizzlin Media. The survey shows that Reliance Mobile emerged as the least admired brand.
Drizzlin Media, a Branding 2.0 consultancy, audited over 1,600 relevant conversations of the 7,000 conversations sampled around India’s top 10 telecom brands to identify the most admired mobile service brand in the Indian Online Space.
Admiration was defined as having a negative or a positive sentiment towards different aspects of the brand including Product/services, Tariffs/billing, Ads/promotions, Customer Care Service, Network Coverage and Brand Affinity.
The Telecom brands covered for the purpose of the survey are Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Tata Indicom, Aircel, Reliance Mobile, BSNL Mobile, MTNL, Spice Mobile and Loop Mobile.
The Methodology of the survey based on 6 venue types were chosen for the purpose of the survey which were: Internet Blogs, Micro blogs, Twitter, Social Networks like Facebook and Orkut, Forums, Video Sharing: YouTube and Consumer review sites like Mouthshut.
For each of the venues, Goggle searches were conducted with advanced operators. For Orkut.com, however, site-specific searches were conducted, owing to the private nature of the social network for calculation of the overall admiration score, the sum of scores for each brand was computed.
A weightage was also assigned to the brands, based on Expected Conversations v/s Actual Conversations found. This weightage multiplied by the score of each brand, gave the final admiration score for each brand. The Overall score for the brand determined the “Most Admired Mobile Service Brand Online”. Admiration scores were also calculated for each individual parameter across the 10 brands to identify the top brands. The score was calculated by assigning weights, based on conversations around the parameter, for each brand.
The Key Findings of The Survey-:
• Vodafone has been recognized as the most admired mobile service brand online in India. This feat has been achieved through its strong branding and advertising efforts both in the offline and online mediums.
• BSNL Mobile has scored highest in admiration for products and services while Vodafone appeared at the bottom of the stack. In the context of Tariffs and Billing, BSNL Mobile took the top honours while Airtel lagged at the bottom. Vodafone scored the highest in terms of admiration for ads and promotional messaging. Here BSNL Mobile scored the lowest.
• Tata Indicom scored the highest in network coverage while Loop Mobile was the laggard in this space.
• MTNL scored the highest in customer service, while Vodafone was rated to have the worst customer service.
• Tata Indicom scores the highest in brand affinity whereas Aircel scores the lowest. While MTNL and BSNL Mobile scored high on individual parameters, people talking of ads and promotions around brands was far higher, propelling active advertising brands like Vodafone, Aircel and Airtel to the top.
• Facebook, despite its phenomenal growth in the Indian online space, still does not see much activity by the telecom brands. Apart from Tata Indicom and Vodafone, all the other brands had negligible presence on the platform.
• 83% of the conversations, in which the gender could be clearly deduced, were found to be by men, while only 6% of these conversations were by women.
• The highest number of conversations was found to be around Ads and promotions, particularly on YouTube and Twitter.
Vasu March 3, 2010 at 10:48 pm
I am using Aircel in Chennai.
I have received my mail after software upgrade recently by January. One single bill contained the following problems and Billing issues and reversals were done atleast 5 continuous months in year 2009.
I have 7 cug connections in my name.
I have received the bill for 20/1/2010 – 19/2/2010. I find the following problems in the bill.
1) I find that the payment for last bill is not reflecting Rs.1680/-, this makes current bill payable to Rs. 3,493/-. Billing is not proper. I will receive ECS extra for Rs. 1,596/-.
2) I do not understand the entry – adjustment Rs.84/-
3) Called customer care to activate Roaming for my new number, it is not activated for more than 72 hours after the request (promised 24 hours).
4) I find that calls from my CUG mobiles (all 6 numbers) to my new number are billed at 30p/min but that my new number is part of my CUG since last month.
5) There was excess billing for Malaysia calls made in december. Thats 6.40 was charged as against Rs.2/- for MaxisFNF (VAS). I spoke to customer care, agreed to get reversed. I don’t find the adjustment of the said excess billing being made to my brother’s number (to the tune of Rs.211.20), even after two months.
6) For my father’s number , activation of Dialer Tune was not requested by me/my father, but I have received charges of Rs.30/- (CBRT) and VAS/GPRS/PRS charges Rs.30/-.
7) Last but never the least, I don’t find my number and its charges being included in the CUG bill. I have not received any separate bill as well.
My connection is a corporate connection (as they call it). Calls to 57777 (corporate care call centre) and 98410 12345 (general customer care number) are not picked for a long period. No response on 57777 since few days after upgrade.
9) Some times, I get replies to my mail, some times not.
What a customer focus?
DM BHATTACHARYYA November 19, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Vodafone is the best service provider. I would request the Vodafone authority to make the retailers up-dated about the latest different plans as whenever I
enquired, the retailers expressed their inability to meet customers requirements on spot. Next to Vodafone comes TATA DOCOMO though they do not have varities plans like Vodafone.
Ravi October 27, 2009 at 12:09 am
This comes as a surprise. Vodafone certainly not the best among telecom companies in India. The sample size of audience and also the sources are very complex. If atleast 25% of customers of each of the service providers had an opportunity to share their feedback, then it would have made some sense.
Anyways, I am a customer of Vodafone and eagerly awaiting Mobile Number Portability to become operational and would switch to other operator.
Till then…..
Vamsi October 20, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I prefer Vodafone as the BEST Mobile service provider ans then comes to Tata Indicom and Reliance
Mayur Jalu October 20, 2009 at 2:29 pm
As per my observation ,i will prefer in first 1)tata indicom 2) vodafone 3) airtel & 4)bsnl
because voice clarity of tata indicom & vodafone is excellent compare to other service provider
No network conjumptiion any time
Services is also good
All the best
avijit October 16, 2009 at 10:14 pm
i use 4 operator 1.airtel 2.reliance smart 3.mts 4.tataindicom
1.airtel:all india best network and no network problem
2.reliance smart: huge network problem and some time call received some sound not here
3.mts:network all time full in kolkata all place and voice clear but sometime calling time network conjection
4.tataindicom: all india network good,no network problem,call conect with a 2 sec
my view
1.tataindicom 2.airtel/vodafone 3.idea 4.reliance 5.bsnl 6.mts 7.mtnl 8.aircel
Prabhu October 16, 2009 at 10:44 am
Vodafone has the worst customer care. I took 3 months to resolve my complain, and then offer no explanation as to why it took so long
bharti October 14, 2009 at 2:12 pm
request u to solve network problem immediately
bharti October 14, 2009 at 2:11 pm
tata indicom is good i have 4 numbers but peviously network is very good but now i m facing network problem every where in evening
suman October 13, 2009 at 2:47 pm
tata indicom deserve it
ratheesh.m October 12, 2009 at 9:42 am
tataindicom is beast world class mobile service
mnr October 12, 2009 at 9:39 am
tataindicom is great mobile
aditya October 10, 2009 at 1:44 pm
hoe about MTS?
Pushpa October 4, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Vodafone is great…. world class mobile service
ajith October 1, 2009 at 2:30 am
Vodafone back again
Anuj September 30, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I would never trust that brand equity survey. I have seen so many peoples around who afraid to purchase Reliance product. Personally, Reliance is worst brand(¿) I have came across, be it their mobile connection, broadband or DTH; worst basic infrastructure, worst service support, poor management.. And ofcourse Reliance is no 1 in false promises, cheating, wrong billing type cases. When they come up with campain that they have no. 1 mobile network in India, I simply laugh..! Airtel has exactly twice cell sites than Reliance & convers twice no. of villages, towns than Reliance. What a big joke & false assurance Reliance makes..
altaf September 30, 2009 at 1:44 pm
expected things
at last someone found the true color of reliance as i said earlier “ANIL AMBANI KA SAPNA SAB KA MAAL APNA”
>>survey shows that Reliance Mobile emerged as the least admired brand.
altaf September 30, 2009 at 1:39 pm
unexpected things
>>Vodafone was rated to have the worst customer service.
happy to help na then wht happened
>>Loop Mobile was the laggard in this space.
loop mobile network is good then how come this came up
>>airtel is nowhere seen in this.
airtel is best but no mention of airtel
Pratap Bhanja September 30, 2009 at 1:30 pm
How far this finding is true & perfect. TOI (Brand Equity) rated “Reliance Mobile” as ‘the most trusted brand of India’. It’s not simply understood, how a most trusted brand is not most admirable? Any answer.
Fahad September 30, 2009 at 10:30 am
Airtel ki tain tain fissss….
Thumbs up to vodafone…..
Much better brand than any othr operator….happy to have you vodafone
Ajay September 30, 2009 at 1:57 am
Great online survey with well key findings, we agree about the Customer care service of MTNL Mumbai, it’s really nice. You will be get connected in next 10seconds to CCE.I want to say that not only CCE but also senior staff also support better than any other ops. Keep up the good work MTNL Mumbai. if you register in DND list & if you are VF subscriber then you will get disturbed from unwanted Smses, only because of this unwanted sms I am throw out my VF SIM. 2nd site Network coverage is better than any other operator across India.
Zeeshan September 30, 2009 at 1:13 am
Why not! Vodafone is second largest company in world after China mobile.
Bikash September 30, 2009 at 12:38 am
BSNL NO1 IN TRANSPARENCY THAN ANY OTHER OPERATORS IN INDIA………..
anshul September 30, 2009 at 12:09 am
how about MTS ???
GRC September 29, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Crap Survey!!Airtel is the best!!
Vodafone Customer Care is worst.Even worst than BSNL.
Anuj September 29, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Ha ha..! Look at Vodafone. Their ads are getting good perception which are centreic about ‘happy to help’, campaign about better customer care service. But as stated in report, Vodafone’s customer care is worst among all operators judged in survey. Thumbs down to Reliance mobile, zero in customer satisfaction.
I too think that Airtel deserves better place if admiration is concerned, atleast better than Tata Indicom & Aircel.
Swaps September 29, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Ya was expecting much from airtel.
Agnivo September 29, 2009 at 9:24 pm
umm, AirTel deserves better place (atleast no.1 to me)…
Today I saw some very good new postpaid plans from Airtel kolkata circle.
Swaps September 29, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Relianc Mobile jindabad.