The Impact of Customer Engagement on Performance in Nigeria Mobile Telecoms Industry

Customer engagement is a core organisational process that concentrates on establishing, maintaining, and enhancing long-term associations with customers. Globally, the mobile telecoms industry is a high customer centric industry, notwithstanding the complexities of relationship affiliations existing between competing firms in the industry in developing economies. The potential relationship drivers include trust, involvement and commitment. Most previous studies of customer engagement in the mobile telecoms industry in Nigeria have failed to provide a theoretical and practical justification that explains the firm’s relationship from the customer`s perspective. This study aims to provide an account of the realities of customer experiences and build on interpersonal relationship that prior relational theoretical findings have yet to frame. A mixed method approach involving the use of qualitative and quantitative techniques in sequence was used for this study. A semi-structured interview of 15 senior, middle and frontline executives from the four major mobile telecoms companies in Nigeria was done. A survey of 220 customers was also carried out by means of a selfadministered questionnaire using a convenience sampling technique. The qualitative data was transcribed; themes analysed and developed using the NVivo software. The quantitative data was analysed on SPSS software. The findings show a very high rate of growth of subscription for mobile telephony services. It also suggests that multiple stages of customer engagement do indeed exist; customer complaints had no real effects on the overall business performance. It also revealed low level of commitment of the mobile telecoms’ firms in achieving deeper customer relationship. This dive in depth is a consequence of distortions and variance in agreements. The level of engagement between the mobile telecoms companies and customers were seen to be promoted from customer evaluation of their actions and experiences. It also shows that the extent of the consumer experience is dependent upon the quality of the formed relationship and its sustainment.