Developing Payout-Loyalty Matrix for Telecom Retailers – A Study on Murshidabad and Nadia Districts

Abstract

Retailing is the route of selling consumer goods and/or services to the ultimate consumers for their personal or household consumption through multiple channels of distribution to make revenue. Retail marketing has undergone radical restructuring due to increase in GDP, per capita income, purchasing power of the people. Now-a-days retail industry has become dynamic industry in the world and this industry is contributing to the economic growth of many countries.Telecom retailers are earning substantial amount of commission from telecos owing to the huge monthly subscriber churn rate and the popularity of mobile numbers portability among users. The churn rate is calculated as the number of subscribers who get out of an operator’s network in a month as a percentage of its total subscriber base. Retail stores are the strategic touch points to tie with prospective customers. Indian customers mostly rely upon retailers and prefer personal interaction for advice and understanding offers. So telecom retailers play a pivotal role for the company to expand market share.The present paper is an endeavour to study the different types of telecom retailers considering two dimensions – loyalty and payout. This study will also help companies to formulate strategies for increasing sales revenue and market share. This study is qualitative in nature and the results are based on market survey of 425 telecom retailers selected from different parts of Murshidabad and Nadia districts by using convenience sampling technique. The study has yielded a number of valuable findings, which are of far-reaching.Consequences for policy formulation and decision making by the companies offering telecom services under study. The findings of Payout-Loyalty matrix indicate that there are six categories of telecom retailers in the market and these retailers are named as Inactive retailers, Bull, Gambler, Market maker, Loyal Screamer, Loyal but volatile & perfect profit maker, Brand & Business builders, Loyal Survivor & Savior and Mask Gambler. This Payout-Loyalty Matrix can help in balancing incentive structure so that retailers are not engaged in gambling company’s profitability.