Customer satisfaction in mobile service quality: Evidence from hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city’s officers

sfaction of 
customers on the empathy dimension is at an 
uncertain level. 
Empathy has a significant influence on 
customer's satisfaction (α < 0.05, β = 0.333). In 
the research of Eugenia et al. (2015) [3] and in 
the research of Aydin et al. (2005) [16] the 
same result was found. 
4.6. Customer satisfaction 
As the results of data analysis on the level 
of agreement show, customer satisfaction 
(Mean=3.390, SD=0.665) was shown at the 
neutral level. 
The hypotheses aim to identify the effect of 
service quality (tangible, reliability, 
responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) on 
customer satisfaction of customers using mobile 
telecommunications in 2 cities in Vietnam. 
According to the result of the hypotheses’ test it 
shows that there is a relationship between 
service quality and customer satisfaction. 
Overall, most customers are satisfied with the 
current services with a highest average mean 
score (3.685). On the other hand, loyalty and 
recommendation nearly got the agreed level. 
Therefore, we can conclude that customers are 
satisfied with the telecommunication services in 
Vietnam, but the satisfaction level is not quite 
high. Eugenia et al. (2015) has mentioned in her 
research about the same topic with customer in 
Taiwan a similar finding [3]. It also agrees with 
the findings of Torsten and Ilknur (2016) [18]. 
So, we can see this result is similar with other 
researches, and we can conclude that the 
customer satisfaction in using mobile services 
of people working in offices is not different 
from that of other people. 
5. Conclusions and implications 
5.1. Conclusions 
P.T.T. Hong, T.V. Hai / VNU Journal of Science: Economics and Business, Vol. 34, No. 5E (2018) 1-18 15 
From the research, customer satisfaction 
(Mean = 3.390, SD = 0.665) was shown to be at 
a slightly satisfied level with the service quality 
of mobile service providers. Customers of these 
services, who are working in offices highly 
appreciate the appearance of the store and staff 
as well as the Reliability dimensions. Even 
though customers are quite satisfied with the 
mobile services in general, they do not have 
positive perceptions of some dimensions. The 
most considerable will be for providing 
personal information and suppliers’ survey 
conducting. Therefore, the suppliers need to 
have more specialized campaigns on customer 
data security and enhancing customer services. 
The hypothesis of the service quality test 
shows that these variables have an influence on 
customer satisfaction. If a product outperforms 
expectations (positive disconfirmation) post-
purchase satisfaction will result [4] [19]. Thus, 
when customers use the mobile 
telecommunications service and get better 
service quality, they will get more satisfaction. 
Also, there is a significant relationship 
between service quality and customer 
satisfaction. But with service quality consisting 
of five dimensions, the different dimensions 
have different effects on customer satisfaction. 
Reliability (β = 0.202), assurance (β = 0.336) 
and empathy (β = 0.333) have a significant 
relationship with customer satisfaction; 
assurance (β = 0.336) is higher than the others, 
meaning assurance has more impact than the 
others on customer satisfaction. The 
significance value of tangible and 
responsiveness are more than the alpha level (α 
= 0.05). Therefore, they have no relationship 
with customer satisfaction at a significant level. 
Accordingly, the three most important 
dimensions (reliability, assurance and empathy) 
in turn give the most satisfaction to customers 
using telecommunication services. 
5.2. Management Implications 
The analytical results of this study have 
several implications for researchers and 
practitioners. Obviously, the ultimate target of 
mobile service providers is to improve the 
company performance and increase its market 
share. However, since Vietnam mobile 
telecommunication is in the 4G era, mobile 
service providers must confront a new 
competitive situation, and different 4G mobile 
services are provided to customers. For mobile 
service providers, this research can be used to 
find out what factors influence customer 
satisfaction and for marketing strategy 
planning. 
In this research, we also found that 
Reliability, Assurance and Empathy all 
significantly affect customer satisfaction in 
using mobile services, but the users here still 
feel not really satisfied with their current 
service. Thus, mobile service providers should 
only focus their investments in these 3 
categories to boost performance. 
Based on the findings of this study, mobile 
service providers should focus on the 
Reliability, Assurance and Empathy of service 
quality. These three dimensions of service 
quality have a significant relationship with 
customer satisfaction in using mobile services 
in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. 
From that they can make customers sacrifice 
time and effort in purchasing their mobile 
services, and how to make customers feel it is 
worth choosing their company over other 
mobile service providers. 
Improve relationship with distribution 
channels 
The findings imply that the customer 
service sector needs to be ameliorated. In the 
tough competition where service operators 
hardly hold a proprietary technology in the 
mobile service market, enhancing customer 
service is a pivotal strategy to pre-empt 
customer satisfaction against other competitors. 
This can help the company not only win more 
customers but also gain more of the 
market share. 
The suppliers here have done a good job in 
providing reliable services that have satisfied 
the majority of customers. However, that does 
not mean that they can stop improving their 
P.T.T. Hong, T.V. Hai / VNU Journal of Science: Economics and Business, Vol. 34, No. 5E (2018) 1-18 
16 
service. For example, they should work closely 
with distribution channels. Distribution 
channels help suppliers bring products and 
services closer to customers as well as to 
receive feedback from customers through the 
process of using the service. Besides chargeable 
staff are people who can easily get feedback 
from customers about the service. That is an 
effective information channel for companies to 
offer new business, policy changes or policy 
adjustments accordingly. Therefore, there 
should be cooperation between suppliers and 
distribution channels, so chargeable staff can 
quickly fix customer complaints. Besides, as 
good relationships and benefits increase, the 
selling of mobile sim cards at dealers will be 
reduced. 
Professional ethics and working 
environment socialization 
It is important to improve the capacity for 
employees, but suppliers also cannot ignore 
professional ethics; therefore they need to 
combine harmoniously to create both special 
attention on the issuing of sim cards or the 
collection of telephone charges that can 
improve the confidence of their customers. 
There should be an open discussion between the 
leadership and staff of the company to talk 
about professional ethics to enhance the 
consciousness of each person, to exchange 
ideas and propose strict sanctions if there are 
deliberate mistakes. 
Complete customer policy 
Moreover, even if companies have very 
nice customers, it will become meaningless if 
service staff do not follow them closely. 
Therefore, companies need to implement 
policies for customer care and their staff must 
carry these policies out strictly. They need to 
develop appropriate policies and stimulate 
participation from both employees 
and customers. 
In addition, companies should develop a 
database of customers that can consolidate 
information from different departments such as 
customer information management, customer 
interaction management, marketing 
management, product & services management, 
etc. so that the company has a full picture of all 
customers. By that system, tellers will easily 
recognize many potential customers and 
collaborate with other technical departments in 
the company to implement marketing activities, 
sales and provide appropriate services. 
Therefore, companies will optimize profitability 
and bring the highest satisfaction to customers. 
Besides, the system also helps the leadership to 
consider and evaluate employees’ effectiveness. 
Enhance customer empathy 
Customers expect to be given individual 
attention. Thus, the suppliers should understand 
specific customers’ desires or requests and 
respond to them promptly. To achieve that 
target, the company needs to invest in a large 
research investigating customers’ demands 
according to each segment. Each customer 
group has definite requirements for their desired 
services; by understanding these desires, the 
company can provide services accordingly. 
Employees’ performances should also be 
monitored to assure that there is no mistake in 
dealing with each customer’s circumstance. 
Furthermore, when the company receives any 
complaints, they need to respond to the 
customer with precise and satisfactory answers 
or actions. Those answers or actions should not 
be equivocal which can cause confusion for 
customers. 
Training for employees 
Company should emphasize more soft skills 
training for the staff force which deals directly 
with the customers. Their skills in promotion, 
communication and negotiation should instil 
confidence in customers. Employees should 
flexibly tackle customers’ problems without 
having them waiting too long and giving an 
unsatisfactory response. Furthermore, more 
employees need to be arranged for the customer 
service sector so that customer’s issues can be 
tackled in succession and in the shortest time. 
Even though most customers have been 
satisfied with the appearance of the store, the 
simplicity or security of the service, etc. the 
company should not disregard these factors. 
P.T.T. Hong, T.V. Hai / VNU Journal of Science: Economics and Business, Vol. 34, No. 5E (2018) 1-18 17 
Without their supportive roles, the service 
quality of the company could have resulted in 
dissatisfaction. Those dimensions should also 
have better elaboration to ensure the long-term 
loyalty of customer to the company. 
5.3. Suggestions and recommendations 
There are some suggestions for future 
research. First, the culture and regulations are 
quite different from one country to the other, 
which is the limitation of the paper. Thus, 
future researchers may wish to conduct study 
(1) involving a sufficiently large sample size for 
the entire country, or (2) including other target 
groups by geographic location or culture 
difference factors. 
Finally, this study used closed-ended 
questions to examine the factors that influenced 
customer satisfaction, and the relationships 
among the variables. Future researchers may 
wish to use other methods for collecting data. 
Further studies could be carried out to develop 
and validate the models by adding external 
constructs within a more specific context. 
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