Business Over Broadway and Mob4Hire Release Results of Global Wireless Satisfaction Survey

March 18, 2010 - PRLog -- Mob4Hire, in collaboration with leading customer loyalty scientist Bob E. Hayes, PhD of Business Over Broadway (B.O.B.), announced the first look at the results of its “Global Wireless Satisfaction Survey” international research, conducted last month. The unprecedented 111-country survey analyzes the impact of mobile apps on operator’s churn (# of new customers acquired minus # of existing customers lost), as well as many dimensions of the app ecosystem as it relates to mobile user behavior and satisfaction.

The B.O.B. and Mob4Hire survey ranks 33 operators based on their mobile performance and user satisfactionThe importance of mobile apps as an emerging component of network operator customer loyalty is not surprising, but the magnitude shown by the survey is:

- 75% of survey respondents say apps are important when choosing their new operator.
- 37% of survey respondents indicating they would leave their operator in the next 12 months cite bad mobile apps as a reason.

The research also illustrates that network operators play a vital role in ensuring a great mobile app experience for their users. The two dimensions of Mobile App Customer Satisfaction and Mobile App Stability varies greatly across global wireless service providers; the report ranks 33 of the top network operators worldwide. The network operator providing the best mobile app experience to their users is Zain, serving over 64 million customers in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. Seven other operators share the top performing honors with Zain (in no particular order): BSNL, MTN, Vodafone, AT&T, Orange, Claro and Movistar. A Mob4Hire “5-Star Excellence in Mobile” award goes to these eight operators.

An 8-page Executive Summary is available free of charge at http://www.slideshare.net/stebankag/mob4hire-presents; or at Mob4Hire’s booth 6950 at CTIA Las Vegas, March 23rd to 25th.



The survey used Mob4Hire’s extensive international “mob” of mobile users; the 5,000 survey respondents came from 111 countries, on 204 different wireless survey providers, using 179 different handset devices. The panel members are early adopters living a mobile lifestyle, and their behavior represents trends that help predict future revenues and business outcomes across the mobile ecosystem.

Other Highlights:

1. 51% of the respondents use more than one network operator.
2. 89% of survey respondents report that applications crash on their phones.
3. When considering downloading/purchasing mobile applications, users typically like to see at least a 4-star rating before they download/purchase the mobile application.
4. On average, survey respondents downloaded 5 to 7 free apps in the last 3 months. In the same time period, paid apps downloads were low, with only 1 purchase per person in the last 3 months.
5. Of those that have downloaded, 47% said they used two or more different app stores.
6. Not surprisingly, iPhone users are the most active; 70% of users download 8 or more free apps. Over 60% purchase more than 2 apps.

Supporting Quotes:

Bob Hayes, Ph.D., President, Business Over Broadway

“Finding a new important dimension of the customer experience that impacts customer loyalty in a big industry is exciting. Our research with Mob4Hire highlights the rapidly evolving wireless industry. There are many organizations that are not only struggling with their core products of wireless coverage and service, but are also unprepared for creating a good mobile app ecosystem. Our survey shows that 75% of customers consider mobile apps when selecting a new network operator, so operators who do not quickly implement a good strategy are going to miss out on the mobile app gold rush. Mob4Hire’s platform, survey tools and global panel of targeted mobile users helped me complete this research quickly and at a fraction of a cost of other methods.”

Stephen King, CEO, Mob4Hire

“Mob4Hire’s mobile community of ‘real people on real handsets with real opinions’ are virtually everywhere; 40,000 people on 364 networks in 146 countries. This provides valuable opportunities to reach global users and include feedback and functional / usability testing for mobile app developers, market researchers, and for large organizations like network operators, handset manufacturers and O/S platform vendors. We were lucky to find a partner like Dr. Bob Hayes, a leading customer loyalty scientist. Nowhere is the effect of customer loyalty played out more immediately than on the battlefield of mobile apps, so being able to understand it quickly and accurately can make the difference between success and failure. Our survey shows that on average, people need to see 4 star ratings in mobile apps. If people aren’t recommending your product or service, you’re not getting new customers. We call it the ‘Curse of the One Star.’ With Mob4Hire, you gain valuable insight into "revenue-killing" shortfalls and start to understand the "killer-features."

About Business Over Broadway

Business Over Broadway (BOB; http://www.businessoverbroadway.com) provides consultative services to help companies gain superior customer insight through customer satisfaction and loyalty research. Customer insights help business professionals make better-informed decisions to improve customer satisfaction and ensure long-term customer loyalty and financial success.

Business Over Broadway was founded by Bob E. Hayes, Ph.D., a recognized expert in customer satisfaction and loyalty measurement, and author of the best-selling books, Beyond the Ultimate Question, and Measuring Customer Satisfaction. Dr. Hayes has conducted consumer research for Oracle, Sophos, Siebel Systems, Agilent Technologies, and Cisco Systems. For more information about Business Over Broadway, please surf to www.businessoverbroadway.com, or contact us at info@businessoverbroadway.com.

About Mob4Hire

With 40,000 mobile users on over 354 operators in 144 countries worldwide, Mob4Hire (http://www.mob4hire.com) is the largest real world; crowd sourced testing and market research community for mobile apps. By incorporating user feedback and in-market testing to developers, we help make mobile software better. Award-winning Mob4Hire significantly reduces mobile application testing costs and reduces time to market by connecting developers with eager, lower priced, crowd sourced testers and focus groups. Mob4Hire also provides their unique micro-payment crowd-sourced MAAP technology (Mob4Hire as a Platform) to developer networks and app stores such as O2 Litmus to allow for private labeled communities to be added to Carrier and Handset Manufacturer enterprise systems to reduce costs and help developers make better software for their mobile users. Founded in 2007, Mob4Hire is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with offices in Victoria, British Columbia and London, U.K. Contact info@mob4hire.com for more details.

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B.O.B. helps companies maximize the value of their customer feedback program through program improvement efforts in areas ranging from strategy/governance to applied research. Companies gain customer insight to accelerate business growth.