TRA report sheds light on consumer experience

Manama, Aug. 2 (BNA): Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) released the results of a recent study on the experience of business users utilizing telecoms services. The research was carried out as face-to-face interviews based on a structured questionnaire of 500 participants in small, medium and large companies across various sectors. As part of its role, TRA gained insights on consumer experience with the main telecommunications providers, namely; Batelco, Menatelecom, Viva, and Zain. The key objectives are to assess the level of satisfaction for Mobile, Broadband, & Fixed telephony. Businesses awareness of TRA and its services was also a key objective of this study. Further, TRA determined development areas in order to enhance users’ experience within telecommunications sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain. "In summary, we can tell from the report that business users are satisfied with their telecoms services overall," saysTaiba Al-Binali, TRA Acting Director of Consumer Affairs and Media. "There are areas which we need to address with operators with respect to each individual category such as providing faster, more reliable internet connections, clearer tariffs and mobile service coverage that offers better voice quality and improved data for mobile users. TRA will continue building on this report to monitor trends and changes in the market so we can act accordingly towards improving businesses experience," she added In the TRA’s findings referring to mobile services, Businesses were satisfied from their experience with Mobile Operators. This satisfaction is driven by different experience touch points, mainly Network, Offers, Bills, Account Managers, Contracts & retail Branches. The satisfaction of these aspects came above average. However, the experience bottlenecks came mainly across mobile Internet. Businesses are dissatisfied from the unreliable mobile internet connection, in addition to the download threshold. On fixed internet services, the report details that businesses expressed high satisfaction levels for their experience with Internet services overall. The trend of business satisfaction is driven mainly by satisfactions of Bills, Account Managers, retail Branches & Offers. However, their main dissatisfaction area in relation to their experience significantly comes from service connections. Businesses are dissatisfied from the internet connection and speed. Another dissatisfactory area for businesses is the download threshold imposed on their usage. Finally, for fixed telephony the results show a generally high level of satisfaction among business users, but not unlike the mobile and internet categories, satisfaction levels varied in the details. It is apparent that clarity on tariffs without any hidden costs was a highly required improvement among users. The full report is available on TRA’s website at www.tra.bh Source: Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA)