Evaluation of factors when selecting an Internet Service Provider: Special Reference to Gampola Area

Abstract

The researchers’ attempt was to investigate the factors affecting the customer’s intention when selecting a particular Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the Gampola area. The researcher selected the Gampola area because of the ease of access to the sample at the period of data collection. According to the annual reports of Dialog, Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), Etisalat, Airtel and Melstacrop (Lanka Bell) they have spent huge amounts of money on Advertising, Marketing and Sales promotion. But according to the information obtained through the aforesaid service provider arcade’s in Gampola, they mentioned that they could not reach the expected customer attraction for their services. Based on the reviewed literature, researcher selected service quality, price, brand image and promotion as independent variables and customer’s intention to select a particular ISP used as a dependent variable of the study. The target population includes internet users in the Gampola area. In order to collect the necessary observations, 100 internet users were selected randomly as the sample in the Gampola area. Both primary and secondary data were used to test the conceptual framework developed in this study. Questionnaires were used to collect primary data and to carry out the analysis, the tool of SPSS was used to conduct the analysis on the relationship between the variables. A reliability analysis was used to check the internal consistency of the questionnaire. The hypotheses have been tested using correlation and regression analysis. The correlation analysis resulted that all variables (SQ, P, BI, PR) were positively affected to customer intention of selecting and staying with a particular internet service provider. Results of regression analysis indicated that brand image and promotion does not significantly affect the selection of a particular internet service provider, but price and service quality has a significant effect on the selection of internet service providers. According to the study service quality, price and brand image were favorable to the customers. This research and developed model could be useful for service providers to develop SQ, P, BI and PR factors suitably to improve the customer retention on their products and to acquire new customers.