A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN THE TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICE MARKET

As is the case in most other service industries, customer satisfaction is of paramount importance in the telecommunications industry. Howeve r, customer satisfaction management in the telecommunication industry is difficult because of the diversity of services and customer segment s that exist. This diversity makes it implausible to have a uniform cu stomer satisfaction questionnaire that can be administered to all the different service/customer segment combination. Therefore, we first ca rried out a segmentation study to identify key customer segments for K orea Telecom, and then focused on one service/customer group in develo ping the questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed using the SERV PERF approach to measuring service satisfaction. We then developed a d ecision support system to manage and analyze the customer satisfaction data The system consists of data input, tracking ability, and statist ical modeling capabilities. The computer software was designed as an ' 'open'' decision support system that was intended to be used by a wide and general audience within Korea Telecom to review and make active u se of customer satisfaction data. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.