ABSTRACT

A field Study was conducted to assess consumer preference pattern in the patronage of mobile telecommunication service provider in Umuahia,Abia state. The study sought to examine the following: primacy ofnetwork effect in consumer selection process of which service provider to patronize, the effect of customer’s demographic factors in the selection process ofservice provider to patronize, the quality ofservice delivery in consumer selection process ofservice provider to patronize. Questionnaire was used to collect data and finally 60 respondents were found useful from 75 questionnaire distributed. This gave as a return rate of 80%.Descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution, percentage and means were used to analyze the data. Relationship between primacy of Network, demographics, quality of service and consumer decision of service provider to patronize were determined by Pearson product moment correlation (PPMC). Results showed that there are a positive and statistically significant relationship between. Network primacy and decision of the consumersfor which service provider to patronize. Result also showed that, there is significant relationship between the consumer age and price of the service provided. Furtherstill, service quality has a significant relationship with the age ofthe respondents signifcant relationships are also found in the following demographic variable; occupation monthly income with network attributes. Finally, telecommunication service providershould focus more attention on providing packages that would benefit consumers that have stayed on their network for a considerable length of time rather than focus attention on attracting new consumers and not managing them effectively