Effectiveness of Push (SMS) Service: A Study on Grameenphone and Airtel Subscribers of Bangladesh
The rapid increase of the use of mobile phones has created a new channel for marketing. SMS Marketing can be an effective medium of advertising in Bangladesh. The use of Short Messaging Service (SMS) has become more important to access potential customers through their mobile phones. The purpose of this paper is to measure & compare the effectiveness of push (SMS) service between Grameenphone and Airtel Telecommunication Company of Bangladesh. Results show that in most of the dimensions of push service like language of push SMS, degree of customers’ irritation, degree of annoying, social, educational and govt. information, relevancy to customers’ life style, Airtel is lagging behind GP. Being the young company, Airtel is in the good position regarding information about service activation & deactivation, customer satisfaction level, special offer and advance permission. Most of the dimensions do not match with the effectiveness of push services especially customers of both companies are irritated and annoyed about push SMS. So in case of overall evaluation for both companies the effectiveness of push service is not in satisfactory level. The findings of this study necessitate the ways for Airtel as well as GP to adopt customer-centric strategic approach through competitive offerings & quality services to enhance the customer attractiveness towards push SMS and improve the effectiveness of push service. The study will contribute significantly regarding the policy making of the business professionals, advertising professionals as well as Telecommunications Company (especially GP & Airtel) in selecting, evaluating and establishing the proper SMS marketing and push service methods.
