1. INTRODUCTION Wateen Telecom is the first company in the world to roll-out a WiMAX network at a country-wide scale.

WiMAX is a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to wired broadband like cable and DSL. With globally renowned partners such as Motorola, Cisco, and Intel, the stage is set to revolutionize the way you use technology! With Wateen's WiMAX network, you get access to:

Broadband Internet with up to 2Mbps dedicated speeds Telephony with over 40 value added features, and Fully secure high-speed data networks

Subscribers can use advanced telephony, surf the Internet at super-fast speeds, make video calls, and watch IP-TV through the comfort and ease afforded by a single connection.

1.1 Packages:
Package A
Free CPE with 512Kbps Internet and EverGreen Unlimited Telephony

Option 1

Pay once: Rs. 17,999

Option 2 Upfront payment: Rs. 2,999 plus 1st monthly charge. Submit 11 post-dated cheques of Rs. 1,350 each

Package B
Free CPE choose your own Internet & Telephony tariff

Option 1

Upfront payment: Rs. 8,499 plus 1st monthly charge. Submit 11 post-dated cheques for monthly charges

Option 2

Upfront payment: Rs. 2,999 plus 1st monthly charge. Submit 11 post-dated cheques of Rs. 499 plus monthly charges

1.2 Research Objectives:

To determine overall customer satisfaction level of Wateen Wimax Determine the customer profile of Wateen Wimax users and the values they seek while choosing an internet connection To determine their reason for switching to Wimax How satisfied are the customers with different features of Wateen Wimax such as speed, connectivity, price and customer service

1.3 Research Design

The Research was based on a questionnaire that consisted of questions designed to achieve the desired research objectives. The questionnaire consisted of nineteen questions with a mix of open ended, close ended and scaled responses. The chosen sample was fifty people who are users of Wateen telecom so that we can find out what they feel about its services. These fifty interviews included field surveys and telephonic interviews.

2. USER PROFILE
As far as the profile of wateen Wimax users is concerned it can only be afforded by socio economic classes A and B because the initial and monthly charges are fairly high. Wateen Wimax users that we interviewed belong to different segments, use it for different purposes, they are using the service from different time periods and they are also using variable packages. These all dimensions of selected users are explained in detail as follows.

2.1 User Profession:

According to our research findings based on interviews from 50 respondents 19 of the users are employees of different organizations, 17 users have their own businesses, 11 are students, 2 are housewives and 1 is a doctor. Findings are also shown in fig. 1.1 in which jobs people, business men and students are three big sectors respectively.

user profession Housewife 4% Student 22% Doctor 2% Business 34%

Business Job Student Housewife Doctor

Job 38%

Fig (A) user profession

2.2 User type:

Out of 50 users that we
Office 40%

User type

interviewed 20 are using WiMax in their offices while 30 are home users. This is also shown in figure 1.2 as 60% of users are home users while 40% are office users.

Home 60%

Fig (B) user type

2.3 Usage Period:

The users we interviewed have been using the WiMax service for different periods as shown in figure 1.3. Out of 50 respondents 10 users are such who are using the service since the launch of WiMax in Pakistan. 18 users are using the service for last 3 months, 17 for 2 months and 5 for 1 month.

usage period
17 18

20 Number of users 15 10 5 0
1 month 5

10

2 months

3 months

4 months

Fig (C) usage period

2.4 Package:
Wateen Wimax provides different packages with different speeds and download volumes. If we compare the use of packages on the base of different speeds most of the users use the package with speed of 512 kbps. According to our findings 39 of 50 users use 512kbps package while 7 respondents use 256kbps package, 3 respondents use 1MB and only one respondent uses 2 MB package.
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40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 256 Kbps 512 Kbps 1 MB 2 MB

7 3 1

Fig (D) Packages

2.5 Reasons to switch:

Reasons to switch
Poor Customer Service Others

1%
Connectivity

25%

37%

Wireless Connection

10%
Speed

27%

Fig (E) Reasons to Switch

Many customers of Wateen Wimax were previously users of Broadband/DSL, dialup and Local Area Network. Out of the taken sample previously 29% users were on dialup, 42% were using DSL and 29% were using Local Area Network to access the internet. There were different reasons given by customers for switching to Wateen Wimax. 25% switched because of poor customer service, 10% switched because they were attracted by the availability of wireless connection feature, 27% switched because they were having speed issues, and connectivity was found to be the major issue with 37% of people saying that they switched to Wateen Wimax because of connectivity issues. 1% said that they were having other issues such as they did not have PTCL landlines.

2.6 Importance of features:

Importance Of Features

90%

86% 40% 48% 46%

VERY IMPORTANT
38%

10%

14% 12% PRICE % 16% C.S %

IMPORTANT NOT IMPORTANT

0% CONNECTIVITY %

0% SPEED %

Fig (F) Importance of Features

Different customers value different attributes of an internet connection while choosing which one to get. The attributes of internet connections for which importance to customers was measured are wireless connectivity, speed, price, and customer service. Connectivity and Speed were found to be the two attributes that were most valued by

customers with 90% of the sample regarding connectivity as very important and 86% regarding speed as very important. None consider speed and connectivity as not important. Price was not important for 12% of the sample, 48% said it is important and 40% say it is very important. 16% say customer service is not important, 38% say it is important and 46% say it is very important.

3. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION OF WATEEN WIMAX 3.1 Likeability of features:

Fig (G) Likeability of Features

Upon asking what feature of Wateen Wimaxs service people like the most, there were variable responses. 62% of the people said that the attribute about Wateen Wimax that they like the most is the wireless connectivity, 28% like the speed, only 6% like the prices being offered and 4% like its customer service. This shows that a high number of people like the wireless connectivity feature which is a new concept in Pakistan.

3.2 Satisfaction levels:

Satisfaction Levels
40% 35% 30%
DISSATISFIED NEUTRAL SATISFIED VERT SATISFIED VERY DISSATISFIED

% Users

We

25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0%

CONNECTIVITY % SPEED % PRICE % C.S %

Value

Fig of Wateen WiMax have measured the satisfaction level(H) Satisfaction Levels users on four criterions namely

connectivity, speed, price and customer service. The satisfaction scale was divided into
CONNECTIVITY RATING VERY DISSATISFIED DISSATISFIED NEUTRAL SATISFIED VERT SATISFIED Total CONNECTIVITY 5 19 10 16 0 50 %
10% 38% 20% 32%

SPEED SPEED 6 12 10 18 4 50 %
12% 24% 20% 36%

PRICE PRICE 5 12 17 15 1 50 %
10% 24% 34% 30%

C.S C.S 16 8 10 16 0 50 %
32% 16% 20% 32%

0%

8%

2%

0%

five levels; very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, neutral, satisfied and very satisfied. According to the findings no WiMax user was very satisfied with the connectivity while out of 50 respondents 5 users were very dissatisfied with the connectivity, 19 were dissatisfied, 10 were neutral while 16 were satisfied with the connectivity. As shown in the fig 68% of the respondents were either not happy with the connectivity or did not find it to be up to the mark. Speed relatively scored better then the connectivity. Out of 50 respondents 4 were very satisfied with the speed, 18 were satisfied, 10 were neutral, 12 respondents were dissatisfied with the speed while 6 were very dissatisfied. 5 respondents do not consider Wateen is charging appropriate prices for the WiMax and were very dissatisfied. 12 were dissatisfied, 17 thought it to be just right, only 15 respondents out of 50 perceived the prices to be appropriate and were satisfied while 1 respondent was very satisfied with the prices. Wateen customer service received a mix response. Out of 50 respondents 16 were very dissatisfied with the customer service, 8 were dissatisfied, and 10 were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. 16 respondents rate the customer service to be satisfied while none of them were very satisfied.

Table (A) Satisfaction Level

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3.3 Rating Scale:

Satisfaction Level
25% 20%

22% 18% 14% 10% 6% 2%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Frequency

15% 10% 5% 0%

10%

12% 4%
10

2%

Rating Scale

Fig (I) Satisfaction Level

According to our findings overall performance of Wateen WiMax was an average one. Out of 50 respondents 29 gave it an overall score of 5 or below as depicted in the fig. Out of the remaining 21 respondents 5 gave it a score of 6, 7 respondents gave it a score of 7, 6 respondent gave it a score of 8, 2 respondents viewed Wateen WiMax to be performing well and gave it a score of 9 and only 1 rare respondent was completely satisfied with Wateen WiMax and gave it a score of 10. The average score was thus found to be 5.3 which means the overall satisfaction level of Wateen is neither very good nor very poor or alarming. But this means that they certainly need to improve on it.

3.4 Comments:
Office should be burnt dow n 2%

Unlim ited dow nload should be introduced 6%

Not upto expectation 12% Router should be of good quality 10%

No com m ent 42%

Comments

Entertainm ent service should be avaliable 28%

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Fig (J) Comments

The comments from Wimax users are: 42% of users made no comment about Wateen and its Wimax service 6 % of users said that unlimited download services should be introduced by Wateen and volume based packages should be finished 12 % said that the Wateen services are not up to expectation 10 % users said that the routers placed by Wateen should be of good quality and more routers should be placed because currently the routers are either placed away from some localities and signals are weak in those areas Few users are so disappointed by Wateen services that they said that the Wateen offices should burnt down

4. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Wateen needs innovative service offerings currently it doesnt even offer bundles or server which provides entertainment channels. Overall Wateen still behaves as a monopoly it has to change its attitude. At a minimum, avoiding billing errors and providing competent and courteous service to its customers is essential if Wateen wants to show that it is transforming itself to a competitive company which cares for its customers As Wateen is using Warid towers so due to load of cellular services the signals of Wateen got weak. So they need to separate there towers so improve there performance

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The router provided by Wateen should be of good quality. Or more than one router should be given by them so the signal problem should be resolved.

People are not satisfied with the call centers and the customer service. The response from call centers should be positive and valid which results in satisfied customers.

For its success Wateen will have to do more than just depend upon its wireless connectivity feature.

5. APPENDIX Primary Information

http://www.wateen.com/ Survey (Questionnaire)

Secondary Information (Blogs, User Comments)

http://sarfarazsoomro.blogspot.com/2008/01/on-fly-with-wimax.html http://www3.fuzedbulb.com/fuzedblog/wateen-experience.html http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/the-tech-turtle/posts/tag/wateen/ http://techlahore.wordpress.com/2007/12/21/pakistan%E2%80%99s-wateenlaunches-godzilla-sized-wimax-network/ 13

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