AN EVALUATION OF THE NIGERIAN COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (NCC) CONSUMER OUTREACH PROGRAMME (COP): A STUDY OF ABUJA MUNICIPAL AREA COUNCIL RESIDENTS

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted to evaluate the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Consumer outreach programme (COP) among Abuja Municipal Area Council residents. The study is set out to find out the public relations strategies used by COP of the NCC to achieve its objective, to assess consumers level of awareness of and participation in COP amongst Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) residents and to find out the benefit consumers of GSM resident in AMAC obtained from COP. The study adopted two-way symmetric model and relationship management theory as the theoretical frameworks and cross sectional descriptive survey as the research methed. The sample size for this study was 384 and interview three senior management staff of the commission. The sampling techniques is simple random, convenience and purposive. Data were collected with the aid of questionnaire and interview schedule as instrument of data collection. Afterward, the data from the respondents were analyzed with statistical package for social science (SPSS) using simple frequency percentages table as well as chi square. The major findings revealed that the public relations strategies used by consumer outreach programme are interactivity and publicizing the programme in local language of the city location where the programme will take place. The awareness level of Consumer Outreach Programme is moderately low 45.5% as against 55.5% who are not aware of the consumer outreach programme. Participation among participants is said to be in area of asking questions 38% and tabling complaints 38% as well as the programme is beneficial in terms of improved knowledge of consumer‘s right 54.5%. Based on the findings, it is recommended that the Nigerian Communications Commission should intensify its publicity regarding COP as to reach out to a large population of consumers. This can be achieved by using the mobile networks to send messages in form of unsolicited text messages to mobile phone users. The voice mobile advert can also be used as well in sensitizing people about the activities of COP. The advantage is that the network bears part of the cost which will make the networks sensitive to improving the quality of service they provide to consumer.

CHAPTER ONE

1.1          Background to the Study

To maintain a good relationship between an organization and its public, an organization formulates strategies and these help the organization to relate effectively with its publics. Public Relations other than managing problems or issues, helps management to be informed and responsive to public opinion. In order to do so, Public Relations practitioners use strategic communication activities research as its principal tools (Cutlip, Center and Broom, 2006). However, Public Relation is fundamental to the survival and development of any organization. It is the oil that facilitates the continuous relationship between an organization and its publics and this relationship is built on mutual understanding and full truth. Public Relations create a favourable atmosphere for any service, idea, and goods/product to thrive. Public Relations link an organization with its publics and focused on relationship, one that mutually benefits organization and its publics. In formulating Public Relations strategies, an organization should take into cognizance consumer behaviour which Lamb, et al. (2000:142) states that it is the acts of decision-making that directly involve the obtaining and using need-satisfying products and services, thus includes the decision-making process which precedes and determines these acts of buying a product. Therefore an organization like the Nigerian Communications Commission should be able to recognize the importance of customer satisfaction from its publics as without them the commission cannot stand. Consumers over time can develop positive or negative perception about an organization, therefore, organization such as the Nigerian Communications Commission must be careful on how they handle issues and matters relating to its public because it could either make or break the commission. Rice (1997:78) states that consumers are people who use products and services and who make payment for those things which are bought. Based on what Rice said the Nigerian Communications Commission as a way of trying to smoothened its relationship between the commission and its publics and keep to its mandate of regulating the telecom industry, set up Consumer Outreach Programme to ensure consumers get quality services from various telecom networks they are subscribed to. This however brings us to the challenges faced by the telecommunication industry in Nigeria which are poor service, poor customer relations and bad network, overcharged calls as well as unsolicited text message. The Nigerian Communications Commission assigned with the responsibility to regulate and ensure Nigerians enjoyed services provided by the network company in the face of these challenges set up Consumer Outreach Programme.

Evaluating a Public Relations strategy is the hallmark of an organization that intends to ascertain if a particular programme is working or not therefore, this brought about the need for this research. According to Grunig and Grunig (2001), evaluation research is necessary to establish the effectiveness of public affairs programmes and their contribution to organizational effectiveness. It provides the vital information necessary to plan Public Relations actions. The drive towards accountability means practitioners must show that Public Relations activities help their organization or clients to achieve meaningful goals (Johnson, 1994; Kirban, 1983).BHowever, Nigerian Communications Commission have been relating with consumers of mobile phone network users through interactions from 2003 to 2017 with the purpose of listening to consumers complaints and also educating and informing them on their right (NCC report, 2010). The drive towards achieving mutual understanding between Nigerian Communications Commission and it mobile phone users led to the establishment of Consumer Outreach programme in 2003, two years after the commercial rollout of Global Service for Mobile Communications (GSM) in August 2001 by the Econet Wireless (now Airtel Nigeria), and MTN Nigeria by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). Babaita (2010) states that before the commercial rollout of Global System for mobile communication services, over 90 per cent of the Nigerian population was cut off from telecommunications because there were gross insufficient telecommunications devices and platforms for communication. Then, only the affluent in the society were able to communicate through the NITEL landlines and analogue mobile devices. Specifically, in 2001, Nigeria could boast of only 400,000 landlines and 25,000 analogue mobile devices for a population of 120 million people (NCC report, 2010).

The rollout of GSM services opened the vista of opportunities for Nigerians to communicate via digital mobile telephone devices. Even then, the opportunities also came with some challenges for subscribers and service providers in the areas of tariff structure, accessibility to networks, affordability and efficiency of the services rendered. Then, the efficiency of service quality stood out to be the major challenge, which still lingers till date. However, in order to address the challenges, especially that of poor service quality that led to the rise in consumers’ complaints, NCC established the Consumer outreach programme (COP), which is designed to bring subscribers and operators together on a single platform, where subscribers will make their complaints and operators will listen and address them accordingly. The NCC further created a new department, called the Consumer Affairs Bureau (CAB) and mandated it to oversee consumer complaints and ensure that their interests and rights are adequately protected bearing in mind the challenges confronting the telecom industry such as poor network service, overcharged calls, switching of costumers tariff plan without their permission. Therefore, this study will evaluate the Consumer outreach programme of the Nigerian Communications Commission among residents of Abuja municipal Area Council.

1.2         Statement of the Research Problem

The telecom industry in Nigeria, like every developing country in the world, is battling with different challenges militating against rapid growth and development in all sectors of its economy. The major challenges of the telecom industry in Nigeria are: poor service, poor customer‘s relations, and bad network, overcharged calls and also unnecessary or unsolicited text messages. In the light of these challenges, the NCC as a regulatory body is assigned with the responsibility of making sure Nigerians enjoy improved services provided by the network company. The commission therefore, set up Consumer Outreach Programme (COP) which serves as a forum where GSM users lay their various complaints to the commission with the operators of mobile phones network in attendance. The forum also serves as an avenue where the commission informs and educates subscribers on the progress or happenings in the industry.

Therefore, in an attempt to address the problems encountered by GSM subscribers in Nigeria, Nigerian Communications Commission has been taking certain steps to checkmate the activities of telecom industry in Nigeria. In 2008 MTN and Celtel were directed by NCC to pay compensation to subscribers who were active on network as penalty for poor quality of service (Babaita, 2010). The focal point of Consumer Outreach Programme is for subscribers to use the platform to lay their complains as well as getting information on the happenings in the telecommunication industry. It is against this backdrop that this study seeks to evaluate how Nigerian Communications Commission have been able to use Consumer Outreach Programme to help address consumers complains.

1.3 Aim and Objectives of Study

The main objective of the study is to evaluate Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Consumer Outreach Programme (COP) among Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) while the specific objectives are:

RO1.   To find out the public relations strategies used by Consumer Outreach Programme of the Nigerian Communications Commission to achieve its objectives

RO2.   To assess consumers awareness and participation in Consumer Outreach Programme activities by Abuja Municipal Area Council residents

RO3.   To find out the benefit consumers of Global System for Mobile communication residing in Abuja Municipal Area Council obtained from COP activities.

1.4 Research Questions

The following are the Research Questions (RQ) set to generate data for the study

RQ1.   What are the strategies used by Consumer Outreach Programme (COP) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to achieve its objectives?

RQ2.   What is the consumer awareness of and participation in COP activities among Abuja Municipal Area Council residents?

RQ3.   What are the benefits Abuja Municipal Area Council residents have obtained from Consumer Outreach Programme activities?

1.5 Hypothesis

1.6 Scope and limitations of the Study

Despite the existence of Consumer Outreach programme from 2003 to 2017, there is a lack of knowledge by mobile phone users about Consumer Outreach Programme which serves as a forum where consumers lay complains about the services provided by telecommunication companies in Nigeria. Therefore this work studied the Nigerian Communications Commission‘s Consumer Outreach programme among Abuja Municipal Council Area Residents. The justification for the choice of Abuja Municipal Area Council is as a result of it been among the pilot location for the programme and also among the few locations where COP has taken place more than once, notwithstanding, it may be difficult to study the entire locations where COP has taken place from 2003 to date within a limited time. The limitation of the work is the exclusion of respondent ages 0-18 years because they might not be able to attend COP and those with informal education in responding to the questionnaire. Another limitation is that this work cannot be generalised beyond Abuja Municipal area Council residents.

1.7 Significance of the study

Studies done on Public Relations have shown a trend that focused on the Public Relations activities of organisations (Wright e tal, 2009, Okechukwu and Wilfred, 2014, Johnson and Ifedayo, 2013) as such this study will focused on Nigerian Communications Commission Consumer Outreach Programme among Abuja Municipal Area Council Residents. Despite the existence of the Consumer Outreach programme, the problems that have struck the telecommunication industry in Nigeria from its inception still exist to date, hence the need for this study. Nigerian Communications Commission‘s Consumer Outreach Programme (COP) may not have been fully utilize by the consumers of telecom service as their exist challenges of poor services despite its existence since 2003 which therefore, indicate the gap in knowledge which this study intends to fill.

The findings of this study will be beneficial to the NCC; this is in consideration of the importance placed on the COP activities of the organization as the fulcrum of managing its Public Relations activities as it relates to providing quality service to GSM users in Nigeria. This study will provide evaluative feedback to the organization and also ascertain GSM users response about Consumer Outreach Programme in terms of awareness, participation and benefits. Other beneficiaries of this study will include other government and privately owned organizations that are into public relations practice as comparisons can be made to also evaluate its Public Relations activities with a view of improving its practices. More so, researchers will also benefit from this study as it will add to the body of existing literature in the area of evaluation of Public Relations activity in an organization, which is an area of concern in the Public Relations literature.

1.8 Operational Definition of Terms

Participation: Attendance and raising of questions during consumer outreach programme

Awareness: knowledge of the existence of Consumer Outreach Programme

Benefits: The degree to which consumer outreach programme can help improve quality service by telecom operators.

Strategy: activities put in place to achieve COP

1.9 Organization of Work

This dissertation has been structured to contain five chapters. Chapter one contains introduction, statement of the research problem, research objective; it goes further to highlight the research question and hypothesis. It also has scope and limitation of the study, significance of the study as well as operational definition of terms. Chapter two contains the literature review that talks about Public Relations, consumer behavior and its relationship with Public Relations. The Public Relations strategies and also evaluation and research in Public Relations were discussed. This chapter also reviewed empirical work, it goes further to explain two way symmetric model and relationship management theory which was adopted as the theory for the study Chapter three explains the research methodology, the method used and the purpose of using such method taking into consideration its strength and weaknesses. It also looks at the way the data was collected and analyze Chapter four contains the analysis and the interpretation of data. It goes further to compare the findings of the present research with the past once. Finally, chapter five contains the summary, conclusion and recommendations of this study.

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