Enhancing the consumers' satisfaction using social media analytics within the financial industry of South Africa

Abstract

Due to the pressures of increased competition from different banks, both globally and internationally, financial institutions have made a strategic decision to incorporate Social Media (SM) and subsequently Social Media Analytics (SMA) in the daily operations of their business. In recent years Social Media and especially SMA gained an immense amount of credibility and, as studies suggested, thousands of organisations were transformed, allowing them to become more client centric and to further increase their profits. There is currently not a clear and specific framework providing evidence that SMA can assist in enhancing consumer satisfaction; this study aims to create a framework detailing the consumer satisfaction factors and linking these factors to SMA, specifically in a financial institution within South Africa. Additionally, since SMA has not been given the acknowledgement it well deserves, this thesis will be investigating the impact of SMA on the financial industry, as well as how SMA transformed a South African bank and allowed it to enhance its consumer satisfaction and fundamentally change the manner in which the organisation operates.