Industry overview
What is shaping telecommunications
Telecom operators compete on network experience, price and service across consumer and enterprise markets. Retail and distribution still matter in a digital-first world.
- Network experience drives churn and loyalty
- Data plans and bundles are compared constantly
- Enterprise connectivity needs consultative selling
Client background
A telecom operator, working in Malaysia & Indonesia. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.
- Organisation
- A telecom operator
- Sector
- Telecommunications
- Team engaged
- Market Research
- Services
- Offline data collection, Reporting & insights, Data analytics & dashboards
Client challenge
The operator wanted consistent sales and service standards across company-owned and franchise stores. Customer complaints suggested that some stores pushed expensive plans without understanding needs, while others were slow to resolve problems.
Research objectives
- Deliver on the brief: mystery shopping telecom retail stores.
- Produce results that can be compared across groups and locations.
- Set up a repeatable measure the client can track over time.
Target audience
Scope: 500 stores per wave.
Audiences we typically reach in telecommunications
Mobile and broadband subscribersRetailers and distributorsEnterprise IT buyersChurned customersTower and infrastructure partners
Geographic coverage
Coverage: Malaysia & Indonesia. Markets: Malaysia and Indonesia. 500 stores covered.
- Malaysia
- Indonesia
Research methodology
A structured quantitative design, so results could be compared across groups, locations and time.
- 1Brief
- 2Mystery shopping visits
- 3Store scorecards
- 4Insight
Mystery shoppers visited stores to ask about plans, devices and problems, scoring greeting, needs discovery, product explanation and follow-up in Malay, Bahasa Indonesia and English. Each visit followed one of several scenarios, such as a family looking for a shared plan or a customer with a billing problem, and shoppers recorded waiting times, explanations and whether staff checked their needs. A share of visits was repeated by a second shopper to check scoring consistency.
Offline data collectionReporting & insightsData analytics & dashboards
Sampling strategy
- Respondents were selected across Malaysia & Indonesia using quotas set in advance for each location and respondent type, so no single area or group dominated.
Data collection
- Trained local-language interviewers conducted interviews in person, supervised in the field.
- Auditors and mystery shoppers followed a standard checklist, recording evidence at each visit.
Data quality & validation
- Back-checks on a share of completed interviews
- Time and location checks on field interviews
- Supervisor accompaniment in the field
- Photo or document evidence for audit points
- Second-reviewer checks on scores
- Logic and range checks on the final data
- Work carried out under our ISO 20252 quality procedures
Data analysis
- Cross-tabulation by key groups and locations
- Significance testing on the differences that mattered
- Interactive dashboard for ongoing tracking
Key findings
- Franchise stores scored lower on needs discovery.
Consistent measurement brought franchise stores up to company standards.
Recommendations
- The operator introduced franchise training and linked part of franchise incentives to scores.
- Share the findings with the teams closest to customers so they can act quickly.
What we recommended, and the client put into practice
Business impact
- Scores improved across the network over the following quarters, and complaint rates about misleading sales fell in stores that completed the training.
Deliverables & next steps
- Insight report and management presentation
- Cleaned data file and data tables
- Interactive dashboard
- Continue the routine and review results every period.
- A natural follow-on question: how do users experience the network?
Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.