The objective of this study is to fulfill a lack from the previous studies about the insufficient information concerning satisfaction from mobile telephone consumers after number portability in Brazil. An original longitudinal research was conducted over three years with mobile telephone consumers after and before number portability in order to evaluate the telephone services providers. There is also a second lack in the literature that refers to the development of a model that could consider the inherent attributes to the mobile phone sector concerning to satisfaction over the provided services. This study aims to analyze the Brazilian mobile phone services. Specifically, it also aims to: (1) verify empirically the fit of a model based on the mobile phone sector; (2) examine the influence of the antecedents and consequents of the satisfaction in mobile phone services; (3) analyze the mobile phone services before and after the number portability in Brazil; and (4) propose a satisfaction index to the Brazilian mobile phone sector. A descriptive survey type study was conducted and the field research was carried out during three years with 1596 telephone mobile consumers, which were divided into two groups: a) before the mobile number portability; and b) after mobile number portability after 12 months the number portability authorization by ANATEL. The collected data were analyzed by statistical tests, including structural equation modeling. The outcomes indicate that there were no great differences concerning the perceptions of the mobile phone consumers before and after the mobile number portability. Thus, there is still a lot to deepen about what led consumers to evaluate from a so similar way the mobile phone providers in the two different periods of time. We also verified that the relationship between perceived value and image, and satisfaction and perceived value were negatively scored during these two different periods of time. Indeed, the strongest significant impacts from the proposed model referred to the relationship between image and satisfaction, and satisfaction and management of complaining.
Satisfaction; Image; Loyalty; Perceived Value; Mobile Phone
