Keywords

1 Introduction

Telecommunication industry as a whole and mobile market especially are characterized by intense competition [1], leading operators to invest time and resources on customer satisfaction and innovation as a mean to retain their own customers and to open new market segments [2]. For example, telecom operators invest on developing their own pay–TV platforms and broadcasting content, while there exist a series of innovative services such as utility payments, digital insurances and mobile money [3]. Regardless these innovations, customers’ satisfaction and their loyalty is an issue under dispute, since service companies don’t seem know how to take advantage from the above—mentioned innovations [4]. Such a situation is more severe in innovation—oriented industries such as telecommunications industry [5], where a late respond on implementing service innovation can decrease customer satisfaction and consequently organizational productivity [4].

Existing literature provides evidence that globalization of trade and economic activity, made innovation an essential parameter for customers’ satisfaction and loyalty, since they are constantly searching for increased added—value from products and services [6]. Innovative firms (a) can adapt their products/services faster to global changes, (b) can provide superior value from improved products/services or develop new ones, (c) can reach more efficiently customers’ needs and (d) can reach higher productivity [2, 7]. All these take place not only because it is important to gain new customers [8], but moreover it is even more significant to maintain existing ones by providing tailoring—made solutions to their needs [9].

As far as how Greek mobile operators can develop innovative solutions in order to increase customers’ satisfaction and their productivity as well, existing research [10,11,12] has highlighted at least five possible sources of innovation, namely: (a) technological innovation, (b) service offerings and packages, (c) digital transformation, (d) internet of things and connected services, (e) partnerships and ecosystems.

Current research investigates the interrelationship between customer satisfaction, organization productivity and innovation in the Greek mobile market, aiming to provide valuable insights for mobile operators to enhance their strategies and improve their performance. Its contribution lies on approaching most significant services offered from an innovation point of view, rather than only a customers’ satisfaction measure.

2 Literature Review

Even though several studies put emphasis on the relationship between customer satisfaction and organization productivity, authors concentrated in how this relationship is formatted in telecommunication industry and mobile markets, in order to better suit proposed results with existing research. Gruca and Rego [13] research in the telecommunication market, revealed that satisfied customers were more likely to adopt and advocate for innovative telecommunication services. Verhoef et al. [14] proposed that satisfied and loyal customers generate higher revenues but moreover contribute valuable feedback and suggestions for product and service improvements, thereby enhancing organizational productivity and innovation. Moreover, according to existing literature customer satisfaction plays a crucial role in driving customer loyalty, business performance, innovation, and collaboration within digital business ecosystems. Understanding and managing customer satisfaction is essential for achieving sustained success in the rapidly evolving digital landscape. Research interest starts from the early 2000 when Hennig-Thurau et al. [15] highlighted that customer satisfaction positively influences customer loyalty, repurchase behavior, and positive word-of-mouth recommendations. Moreover, they pointed that digital businesses need to prioritize customer satisfaction to foster customer retention and business growth. Another study, conducted by Cachero-Martínez and Vázquez-Casielles [16] revealed that higher levels of customer satisfaction led to increased customer loyalty, higher sales, and improved financial performance for digital businesses. The study underlined the importance of customer satisfaction in driving organizational success in the digital domain. Literature has been highly enriched in the last years, since researchers from different fields contributed to digital business framework, by studying aspects of the relationship between organization productivity, innovation through customer satisfaction. Such aspects include human factor [17], collaboration [18], technical capablities [19] and innovation capabilities [20]. These aspects when studied in digital business environment are related with organizational productivity and customer satisfaction, since they are related with digital transformation and digital innovation [21]. This paper aims to enrich existing evidence by studying Greek telecom industry.

3 Methodology

A quantitative research design was employed to gather and analyze data related to customer satisfaction and mobile services usage in the Greek mobile market. A structured questionnaire was administered electronically to a convenient sample of mobile users covering aspects of customer satisfaction, perceived value, and usage behavior. The sample was chosen randomly and reached electronically via emails, while the emails were given voluntary by the users themselves. A total of 6968 questionnaires were collected providing a large enough sample to extract valuable information.

In order to develop the questionnaire, a bibliographical research was conducted, based on similar researches form various sectors [22,23,24]. In order to measure satisfaction a series of characteristics are evaluated, involving satisfaction from: products/services (existing), network (in terms of coverage, speed etc.), stores (physical places to reach services and after–sales services), human resources (support from firms’ staff physically or remotely), customer services (in terms of complaints, time needed to support, understanding about customers’ needs, etc.), prices (services’ cost), online services/webpage (information provided online and online services. All above—mentioned characteristics can include an innovation, that provides high added—value to customers, increasing their satisfaction and consequently their loyalty.

Productivity and customer satisfaction indexes were calculated based on real data from mobile operators’ performance metrics. These data included: total number of active subscribers, total number of prepaid cards, total number of contracts and total number of subscribers. All above—mentioned productivity measures are related with types of subscribers. In order to further evaluate results, an alternative series or productivity measures was gathered as well, including mainly “usage” measures and from subscribers’ perspective only new mobile connections were included. This alternative series of productivity measures included: mobile market penetration, average time using voice services, total number of messages sent, average number of messages sent per user, total number of outgoing talk minutes, total minutes of network usage, number of new mobile connections.

The relationship between measures of satisfaction and productivity measures (of both types) was examined by using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and Linear Regression as well. A multicriteria satisfaction analysis (MUSA method) was used to measure customer satisfaction. The method is ordinal–regression-based approach used for the assessment of a set of collective satisfaction functions so that the global satisfaction criterion becomes as consistent as possible with customers’ judgments.

4 Results and Discussion

Results provide evidence about how customers’ satisfaction is cultivated in Greek mobile market, where innovation exists and how organizational productivity is affected. Table 1 presents how customers’ satisfaction is interrelated with productivity measures related with the total numbers of various categories of subscribers/subscriptions. Results indicate positive relationship with all four categories indicating a strong network effect. The more subscribers/subscriptions exist in the same network, the more the customers’ satisfaction, while it should be mentioned that the strongest positive relationship is between customers’ satisfaction and the total number of subscribers. This is mainly related with existing preferential tariffs when a subscriber is contacting with users of the same network. That is why families or friends, and business co-partners often select to be in the same network. Service Offerings and Packages seem to be an innovation that lies behind the lines since mobile operators seem to redevelop their packages in order to provide higher added—value to their customers when it comes to such network effects. However, it should be noted that proposed result are not statistically significant.

Table 1 Productivity measures and total customers’ satisfaction
Full size table

The above—mentioned results are supported when the level of analysis come to the various subcategories of customers’ satisfaction (Table 2). Network has the strongest positive relationship with productivity measures, even though positive correlations exist with human resources and customer services as well (even though weaker). Stores seam to play a negative role to customers’ satisfaction most probably because online services replaced physical presence as an important factor for users.

Table 2 Productivity measures and subcategories of customers’ satisfaction
Full size table

Moreover, products/services and prices as well have a mixed result since negative and positive impact is balanced, indicating that Greek mobile market, operators have many similarities as far as products/services and prices (offers and packages) are concerned. Competition is mainly concentrating in network coverage and supplementary services, while differentiation in the above–mentioned categories is negligible. Finally, it should be noted that online services/webpage seem to mainly affect positive subscribers indicating a change from physical presence to online/distant services.

Results are supported even when the alternative productivity measures are used (Table 3). All measures are positive, and mobile market’s penetration is the strongest and positive parameter when it comes to customers’ satisfaction. In contrast with the previous results, mobile market’s penetration has a statistically significant impact on customers’ satisfaction. All other productivity measures have lower positive effect (and not statistically significant) while the second strongest measure is the number of new mobile connections, supporting the network effect already mentioned.

Table 3 Alternative productivity measures and total customers’ satisfaction
Full size table

Table 4 provides evidence about how subscribers’ alternative productivity measures interrelate with the various subcategories of customers’ satisfaction. Results indicate the existence of three statistically significant relationships, all related with the “Network”. Namely, Network has statistically significant and positive correlations with: (a) total number of messages sent, (b) total number of outgoing talk minutes and (c) total minutes of network usage. All these productivity measures are related with network since the network effect is of high importance in Greek mobile market.

Table 4 Alternative productivity measures and subcategories of customers’ satisfaction
Full size table

Moreover, network is the only characteristic on customers’ satisfaction that is positively related with all the proposed productivity measures. All the rest characteristics have both positive and negative effects. Products and services, even though having such a mixed result, have mainly a positive effect on market’s penetration, indicating a high significance. Following previous studies, that is an indicator that a higher involvement of customers to the design and improvement of products/services, can affect innovation, customers’ satisfaction and finally organizational productivity. Finally, service quality, expressed by (a) Human resources and (b) Customer services, has a positive effect on productivity measures (even if not in all cases) indicating that service quality is an innovation source since it creates a unique mixture of intangible assets such as organizational culture, leadership etc. [10, 12, 25]. Results for human resources support evidence that the parameter is significant for change management and innovation [26].

5 Conclusions

Results presented are consistent with similar research on telecommunication market. For example, as far as Products/Services are concerned, involving customers in the design and improvement can lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and consequently in increased customer loyalty, reduced churn rates, and improved organizational productivity, supporting existing research [27]. Moreover, results indicate that service quality plays a significant role as well. Results support the idea [28] that by improving service quality and addressing customer needs and preferences, mobile operators can achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction, leading to increased customer loyalty and stimulating innovation with-in the organization. Research provides evidence about a strong network effect in Greek mobile market. The more subscribers exist in a network, the more satisfied the customers are and more loyal to their operator, leading to increased productivity and supporting the idea that is more expensive for operators to gain new customers than to retain existing ones [11]. That explains why Greek operators mainly innovate in terms of Service Offerings/Packages, since providing lower tariffs when communicating inside the same network, can provide a higher added value to their subscribers. Finally results indicate a relationship between organization productivity and telecoms’ tension to mainly innovate in terms of customers’ satisfaction, supporting the idea that agile methodologies are related with future strategic management in digital business [29].