Customer Retention Among Telecom Service Providers – A Markov Model Analysis

Abstract

Customer retention is viewed as a major determinant of a firm’s long term economic success. This is particularly true for the wireless telecom sector, where service quality is the prime defining factor of customer loyalty. With relaxed number portability norms, switching cellular network operators has become common among subscribers in India. In this paper, we have attempted to forecast the young subscriber’s preference of network service providers in Pondicherry, India. Based on primary data we explored the consumer brand preferences while purchasing SIM cards from service providers, using the Markov Prediction Chain model. We found that the public sector players lose to the private sector players.