- Title
- Complaints and service recovery responses on South African banks’ facebook fan pages: a netnographic study.
- Creator
- Phambuka, Nomfundo
- Subject
- Online social networks.
- Subject
- Consumers--Research.
- Subject
- Marketing research.
- Date
- 2022-02
- Type
- Master's theses
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10353/22266
- Identifier
- vital:52011
- Description
- The internet transformation over the past decade has changed the way businesses and consumers communicate. Instead of face-to-face transactions, businesses can now interact with their customers online, not just by marketing new products and services, but also by providing added value services in the online environment. The internet has become a dominant aspect in assisting businesses to attract and retain customers. One of the fastest growing platforms for this communication is through social networking sites. Many consumers are preferring to use social media platforms such as Facebook to express their views on the products or service of a business. In fact, the business’s Facebook page has become a preferred channel for customers who wish to voice concerns or complaints about the service they have received. As a result, many businesses are using that same platform for service recovery, and to make amends with their customers following a service failure. The aspect of online customer complaints and service recovery on social media, has not been well researched in the South African banking industry, which highlights both a gap and an opportunity. The aim of this study was to provide an analysis and categorisation of the types of customer complaints and service responses on the top five South African banks’ Facebook pages. These banks are; ABSA bank, Capitec Bank, First National Bank (FNB), Nedbank and Standard Bank. A qualitative approach known as netnography was adopted, as it provided an insider’s perspective on what customers complain about on a social media platform and how the banks responded to these complaints. 1250 complaints and the corresponding responses were extracted from each of the banks’ Facebook pages over a period of three months through a qualitative research software known as Nvivo 11. Using the framework provided by the justice theory, complaints and the corresponding responses were categorised. Customer complaints were categorised as either process, outcome or random and the banks’ responses were categorised as either procedural, interpersonal, distributional or informational dimensions. The main finding across all the banks, was that 1050 of the total number of complaints were related to the outcomes of the services provided; such as the banking app , the ATM machine and the general service the customers received. On average, the banks responded to around 70 percent of the 1250 complaints, with Nedbank having the best response rate (196/250) and Standard having the worst response rate (138/250). In addition, most of the banks responded in an interpersonal manner, dealing with customer’s problems directly. Once again, Standard Bank had the least number of interpersonal responses. On the whole, all the banks were mindful of the importance of explaining the reasons for service failures and explaining how the problem was going to be solved. Findings from this study indicate that consumer expectations of service failures and recovery are context driven, which requires companies to modify their recovery strategies to improve the customer’s personal experience. It can also be noted that many customer complaints stem from a general lack of understanding of banking systems and that banks should therefore be utilising their online platforms to keep customers well informed regarding common and frequent customer complaints. The main recommendation from the study is that banks should be entirely transparent during online service recovery and utilise their social media pages to do so.
- Description
- Thesis (MCom) (Business Management) -- University of Fort Hare, 2022
- Format
- computer
- Format
- online resource
- Format
- application/pdf
- Format
- 1 online resource (175 pages)
- Format
- Publisher
- University of Fort Hare
- Publisher
- Faculty of Management and Commerce
- Language
- English
- Rights
- University of Fort Hare
- Rights
- All Rights Reserved
- Rights
- Open Access
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UFH Department of Business Management
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details | SOURCE1 | Phambuka_ 201303816_ Business Management.pdf | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details |