Premium customers' perception of firms' customer ...

Int. J. Markets and Business Systems, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2016

Premium customers’ perception of firms’ customer relationship management segmentation, identity strategies and their satisfaction Andy Fred Wali* Department of Business Administration, Federal University Wukari, 200 Katsina-Ala Road, P.M.B 1020 Wukari, Taraba State, Nigeria Email: [email protected] *Corresponding author

N. Gladson Nwokah Department of Marketing, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, P.M.B 5080 Port Harcourt, Nigeria Email: [email protected] Abstract: This paper examines premium customers’ perception of CRM segmentation strategies of firms and how their identity and satisfaction are taken into account by Nigerian mobile telecommunications firms. The qualitative phenomenology interview strategy was chosen for this study. Twelve interviews were conducted and data were analysed using content and thematic techniques with NVivo 11. Findings show that personality and economic identities were the variables most taken into consideration by firms for implementing their CRMS [CRMS]. These identities affect firms’ CRMS strategy based on customer lifetime value. The study also revealed that CRM affect both identities and premium CSAT, although quality of service showed higher impact than price and trust on satisfaction. Six themes affect experiences of respondents. This study extends the value of social identity theory (SIT) and rationality choice theory (RCT) in CRMS. The practical implication suggests profitable and competitive opportunities for firms to improve premium CSAT. Keywords: premium customers; perception; satisfaction; identity; customer relationship management segmentation; CRMS; qualitative interview; NVivo 11. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Wali, A.F. and Nwokah, N.G. (2016) ‘Premium customers’ perception of firms’ customer relationship management segmentation, identity strategies and their satisfaction’, Int. J. Markets and Business Systems, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp.291–308. Biographical notes: Andy Fred Wali is a Lecturer in Strategic Marketing, Department of Business Administration Federal University Wukari Nigeria. He has taught marketing modules and supervised undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations at Huddersfield Business School, UK and currently a visiting scholar at Huddersfield. He is a member of BAM, AMS, EURAM and AM. His current research interests are in CRM/CEM within strategic marketing framework and qualitative research philosophy. Copyright © 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

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A.F. Wali and N.G. Nwokah N. Gladson Nwokah is Associate Professor of Marketing and Head of Marketing Department, Faculty of Management Sciences, Rivers State University of Science and Technology. His papers have appeared in many Emerald journals. His current research interests are in strategic marketing management, marketing philosophy, database marketing, online shopping and e-marketing.

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Introduction

This paper aims to study the perceptions of premium customers towards the customer relationship management segmentation (CRMS) strategies of mobile telecommunications firms and how their identity and satisfaction are taken into account. This study is timely because mobile telecommunications firms in Nigeria were at the time increasingly launching premium products and services – hence the need to evaluate perceptions of premium service users so as to provide contributions that would strengthen firms’ ability to enhance customers’ satisfaction and their customer relationship management (CRM) effectiveness. Due to the absence of empirical studies on premium customers’ perception of firms’ CRMS in Nigerian mobile telecommunications sector this study draws much from CRMS literature to establish its domains. CRM platforms are used by firms to generate customer data through service interactions and segment their markets based on volume of service usage, needs and preferences for improved service experience (Winer, 2001; Labus and Stone, 2010). This indicates that customer segmentation plays a critical role in developing effective and efficient CRMS strategies for providing profitable and satisfactory services. In developing CRM strategies, firms recognise that they have different types of customer, customer based on, e.g., income, personality, taste and economic influences. From a literature review, we observed that previous studies examined customer identity and segmentation based on general market characteristics, but no reports are available concerning firms’ segmentation strategies for premium customers and how they affect satisfaction. Studies suggest the need to investigate factors which influence firms’ CRMS strategies and their impact on the satisfaction of high-spending customers with services (Winer, 2001; van den Poel and Lariviere, 2004; Anderson et al., 2004; Doug, 2007; Hung and Tsai, 2008; Coussement and van den Poel, 2008). This paper aims to make theoretical contributions within social identity theory (SIT) and rationality choice theory (RCT) and a practical contribution, as it covers the CRMS strategies of telecoms firms in serving their premium market.

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Literature

The theoretical lenses for this study are SIT and RCT. According to Tajfel (1978) and Turner (1978), SIT predicts individual behaviour of some based on differences in status, societal legitimacy and status stability and individuals’ ability to migrate from one status group to another. SIT has been criticised for its constraints on understanding social behaviours of a group of people, hence the recommendation for including self-categorisation into SIT (Smith and Smith, 1999; McGarty, 2001; Ashmore et al.,

Premium customers’ perception

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2004). This argument suggests that individuals within a social group were characterised by diverse behaviour, taste and their quest for social growth was constantly changing. Hence, they would seek self-identity, perhaps as their income status and level of interaction network grows. In other words, the quest for self-classification and self-identity is psychologically subjective as it brings about social competition within a group as individuals are intrinsically driven to achieve positive self-identification and recognition. We adopt the SIT as a lens because it enables this study to examine the perception of premium customers about their identity in firms’ CRMS decisions and satisfaction. SIT is also suitable as it enables the study to investigate what types of identity influence firms’ CRMS strategy and its contribution to customer satisfaction (CSAT). RCT is a lens for understanding social and economic behaviour of customers (Sen, 2000). Others have argued that RCT is a function of overall social behaviour which emerges from the personalised behaviour of individuals in a social class as they make purchase decisions (Donald and Shapiro, 1994; Charles and Zeiler, 2005; Lohmann, 2008). The use of the RCT lens is on the premise that customers have different levels of purchasing power to use on different choices, implying that they were likely to make choices meeting their tastes and status (Grune-Yanoff, 2012).

2.1 The concept of identity and CRMS Identity is vested or embedded in a person or shared amongst persons of a certain social network (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000; Tracy and Tretheway, 2005; Hasan, 2006). Identity helps label customers based on relational and contextual influences, like social and cultural interplay. The way service providers in country ‘A’ would label their customers could differ from those in country ‘B’. Deaux et al. (1995) suggested that customers have different identities based on self-definition and that customers may buy products and services which suit their identity (Kleine et al., 1995). This supports the idea that customers naturally like products that suit their social status (Forehand and Deshpande, 2001). Studies have shown that firms that identify attributes of their various consuming markets are very successful in their business strategies (Cleveland et al., 2011). This source illustrated that identity enabled firms to understand behaviours of their customers and helped in their successful product segmentation across various markets and locations. Kuusik and Varblane (2009) argued that identifying and segmenting telecommunication customers was critical for improving customers’ satisfaction, loyalty and quality of relationship and services. These were key factors which affected customer service retention and termination. Chowdhury et al. (2014) reported that identity had a positive influence on customers’ satisfaction, helping to identify customers based on their expectations and facilitating delivery of targeted services that meet their specific social needs and wants. As this study is exploratory in nature, we consciously did not measured the concept of identity as we envisaged that its meaning and how it is used by firms in their CRMS strategies would emerge naturally from the data. Practitioners appear to be enthusiastic on the use CRMS to win profitable customers and make them loyal (Wali et al., 2015). Winer (2001) posits that one of the basic functions of CRM is to identify the needs and preferences of customers on the basis of their activities while analysing data on this to build robust customer segmentation criteria to provide customised product and services. This implies that identity and customer segmentation strategy are implicit in the decision-making process for CRMS and

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implementation (Van den Poel and Lariviere, 2004; Coussement and van den Poel, 2008). We define CRMS as firms’ ability to use their customers’ activity data to segment market on the basis of lifetime value, profitability, levels of usage to facilitate a strategy for building personalised services and meeting customer expectations (Anderson et al., 2004; Hung and Tsai, 2008; Wali and Wright, 2016). Market segmentation is defined as a marketing strategy used in breaking a target market into sub-units of customers who have common needs, wants and consumption priorities (Kotler and Keller, 2006; Doug, 2007; Kotler and Armstrong, 2012). Studies have recommended that market segmentation strategy can be implemented on the basis of customer needs, rate of customer service usage, channel preferences, specific product features, customer lifetime value (CLV) and customer profitability (Kotler and Keller, 2006; Su-Yeon et al., 2006; Robert and David, 2009). CLV is adapted for measuring CRMS (Kotler and Keller, 2006; Su-Yeon et al., 2006; Doug, 2007; Robert and David, 2009).

2.2 CLV CLV is defined it as the net value resulting from deduction of all costs that firms incur in the process of attracting, maintaining and servicing their customers from the total revenues generated from its customers through the analysis of their lifetime transactions records. That is, if the revenue derived from a particular customer or group of customers is higher than the expenditure then investment into maintaining such customers would be profitable (Dwyer, 1997; Verhoef and Donkers, 2001; Jain and Singh, 2002; Su-Yeon et al., 2006). Also, Su-Yeon et al. (2006) and Hwang et al. (2004) explained CLV on the basis of customers’ current value, potential value and loyalty. Others suggested that CLV is the monetary value of a customer relationship measured by present and future cash flow value from the relationship (Shaw and Stone, 1988; Kumar et al., 2006; Farris et al., 2010). With that CLV is important for firms’ survival because with available data firms can build long-term customer relationships with different groups of customers based on their value. CLV is also measured as the profit firms generate from serving a customer group over a specified period (Dwyer, 1997; Verhoef and Donkers, 2001; Kotler and Keller, 2006; Farris et al., 2010). Saarijarv et al. (2013) reported that effective segmentation depends on the quality of customer value (CV) data and that CRMS can be used to support service quality (SQ) and users’ experiences. This follows that CRMS enables firms to provide targeted services for their different markets. Segmented data is used to customise communications and segmentation (Payne and Frow, 2005; Jayachandran et al., 2005). Berger and Nasr (1998) suggest that businesses constantly engaged with CLV analysis had high returns on CRM investment. Firms that segment their market using CLV were better positioned to improve CSAT and achieve high customer retention (Pfeifer et al., 2005; Kumar et al., 2006; Ryals, 2008; Persson and Ryals, 2010).

2.3 CSAT, SQ and SP Defining CSAT is always subjective and controversial due to its intrinsic and implicit nature. Oliver (1980) defined CSAT as a measure of how firms’ products and services meet and exceeds CSAT expectations. Further it added that CSAT experience is implicit and explicit as it is enhanced by the nature of value relationship offered by firms. Kotler and Armstrong (2004) opined that CSAT is the degree of fitness between perceived


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product performance and customer expectations. Wali and Wright (2016) validate Oliver (1980) and Kotler and Armstrong (2004), that CSAT is based on a customer’s psychological and emotional feeling of product and service fulfilment caused by satisfaction expectations being met by suppliers. Others argues that CSAT is predicted by SQ, price, perceived value (Oliver, 1980; Westbrook, 1980; Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1988; Bloemer et al., 1999; Bacchiocchi et al., 2011; Lymperopoulos et al., 2013; Pantouvakis and Bouranta, 2014). Oliver (1980) puts that SQ evaluation emerges from a process of comparing actual expectations with specific performance. SQ as the customer’s judgement that a firm’s product and service is excellent and superior for meeting expectations (Parasuraman et al., 1988). This definition supports Oliver’s suggestion that SQ is a function of comparing actual expectation and specific performance of products and services which could bring about satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Jeng and Bailey (2012) suggest that phone SQ, customer SQ, and phone plan quality are three key market relationship segmentations and lead to CSAT and retention. Wang and Chou (2013) examined the relationship between SQ and CSAT whilst drawing on both customer and employee units and found that employees’ outward emotional appearances positively influenced CSAT experience. Olatokun and Ojo (2014) reported that service responsiveness, service assurances and empathy as attributes of SQ had a positive impact on CSAT. To et al. (2013) in their study reported that firms that delivered targeted SQ positively influenced their CSAT expectations. Greenland et al. (2006) reported that firms in developed economies were more committed to meeting SQ expectations than those in the developing economies. Wali and Wright (2016) found that actual SQ performance had positive influences on CSAT. Service price (SP) is the monetary value placed on firms’ product and service offering to current and potential customers (Schindler, 2012; Heyne et al., 2014). He et al. (2008) found that SP has positive influence on CSAT and that the level of CSAT determines how much they are willing to pay. Second, that when customers are satisfied they are not really concerned with increases in price of products and service. This indicate that less satisfied customers are more concerned with price cut than satisfied customers – the need for firms to improve CSAT experience as a justification for increasing their product and service price. Estelami and Bergstein (2006) reported that when transaction prices increased CSAT was high because customers’ perceptions of value increased. When transaction price was low CSAT became low because customers perceived the product and service quality as low and would not meet their expectations. The source in another study (Estelami and Bergstein, 2006) found that price reduction of telecommunications services in the UK impacted positively on CSAT. Zielke (2008) found that customers’ perception of firms’ fair service pricing had a significant impact on CSAT whilst negative perception of SP resulted in customer dissatisfaction. That is, when prices were perceived as fair and affordable it catalysed customers’ feeling of satisfaction even prior to service purchases and consumption.

2.4 Perceived identity, CRMS and CSAT The key aim of segmentation is to identify and provide services to individual customers or groups with similar needs and wants (Wedel and Kamakura, 1999). Tsai et al. (2015) studied how firms’ customer identity helped in segmenting automobile customers for effective relationship management. They identified four customer groups-loyal, potential,

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very important personalities (VIPs) and churn customer groups. Their results show that firms could identify and implement several customised relationship management strategies for different categories of customers based on their need, profit potential and value. White and Yu (2005) and Chang and Ku (2009) posit that when firms identify their customer market by segmenting them based on value, profitability and levels of usage they are able to develop different CRM strategies. For example, premium customers are big service spenders who expect high service commitment from their suppliers. Bassi (2007) supports the idea that customer segmentation helps give value to CRM strategies and that when firms can identify different customer segments they can develop targeted strategies for meeting customers’ needs. Cheng and Chen (2009) studied how length of customer retention impact on firms’ relationship strategies and CSAT. They identified different customer groups based on their lifetime value records and found that big service customers with high lifetime value were less expensive to maintain, more loyal to a firm’s offering and satisfied with services. Oliver (1980) had argued that CSAT experience is a function of the nature of value relationship delivered by firms and that firms which appreciate customers’ patronage based on consumption classification would more positively influence their satisfaction than firms with blanket marketing strategies. Therefore, increasing CSAT is an essential aspect of CRMS strategy. Studies have also justified the role of CRMS in building overall robust integrated marketing strategies. Zeithaml and Bitner (2000) suggest that firms’ profit maximisation depends on their ability to identify profitable customers rather than providing blanket services across all stream of customers. They further explained that managing customers was expensive, so it was important to identify and segment customers using available activity data based on their lifelong value and profitability. This is because it helps serve each group based on the satisfaction expectations vis-à-vis their contributions towards meeting overall firms’ target on return on investment. Zeithaml et al. (2001) propounded a customer segmentation structure which includes platinum, gold, iron and lead customers respectively, suggesting that this customer segmentation structure would help firms to serve their customer market based on their levels of profitability and value. Wali and Wright (2016) found that institutions that serve customers based on their contribution were able to provide better services. This is because different customer groups were served with unique service strategies that matched their commitment and contribution. Empirical evidences linking the perceived impact of identity on CRMS and CSAT suggests that firms’ inability to identify their customers’ social and economic need might lead to be offering wrong services to customers. Premium customers in this study are referred to as VIP customers - large data and mobile voice call subscribers. For this study the following research questions were developed: Q1 What are the perceptions of premium customers towards firms’ CRMS? Q2 What types of customer identity were considered by Nigerian mobile telecommunications firms in their CRMS strategies? Q3 Has the consideration of identity in firms’ CRMS influenced premium CSAT? Q4 What other factors influence premium customers’ long- and short-term satisfaction?


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Methodology

This study adopts the qualitative phenomenology with a face-to-face interview approach, devised out to understand and describe multiple meanings and significance of premium customers’ experiences with mobile telecommunications firms’ premium services (King and Horrocks, 2010). The population of this study were premium customers of mobile telecommunications services in Nigeria. But our accessible population and units of measurement were private premium customers in Port Harcourt Nigeria. The sampling techniques used were purposive and snowball sampling respectively. Our selection criteria include: length of subscription – subscribers of more than one MT premium services for a minimum of five years were selected (King and Horrocks, 2010; Miles et al., 2013; Marshall et al., 2013; Patton, 2015). Those sampled were qualified for these interviews because they shared commonalities in terms of social and economic status, for the types of premium services they subscribed to (Crouch and McKenzie, 2006; Baker and Edwards, 2012; Alvesson and Ashcraft, 2012). We first sampled two premium customers who were known by one of the researchers for over ten years. Thereafter, the two samples referred us to five others and the process of referrals continued in same order till we were able to interview the 12th interviewee. For post-recruitment ethical considerations, we started the interviews by soliciting each participant’s permission to record conversations whilst assuring them of data confidentiality and this was done in English language. Overall, only 12 samples were selected for this study due to the difficulty of accessing more private premium customers. Specifically, ten face-to-face interviews were conducted with users in Port Harcourt within a period of one week and two interviews were conducted via mobile voice call in one day. The face-to-face interviews lasted between 30 minutes and 45 minutes (Silva and Wright, 2005; Warr, 2005; Silverman, 2006; Wali and Wright, 2016) and the phone interviews lasted between 20 minutes and 30 minutes (Morgan and Spanish, 1985; Kitzinger, 1994; Wali and Wright, 2016). There is scholarly evidence that 12 participants were adequate to reach data saturation for a face-to-face interview approach (Kuzel, 1992; Creswell, 2007; Adler and Adler, 2012; Bryman, 2012; Marshall et al., 2013; Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015; Saunders and Townsend, 2016; Wali and Wright, 2016; Wali et al., 2016). We reached data saturation at the 12th interview after a regular reflection on previous interview transcripts (Gibbs, 2008; King and Horrocks, 2010). Data were analysed using content and thematic template techniques respectively (Gibbs, 2008; Bryman and Burgess, 2002; and Clarke, 2006), with the aid of NVivo 11 software for data management, reduction, coding and thematic weighting. The thematic analysis process follows scholarly rules (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Wali and Wright, 2016; Wali et al., 2016): identify initial themes – review initial themes – eliminate repetitive initial themes with similarity in meaning-cap final themes. The analytical output of thematic weighting is shown graphically in Figure 1.

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Table 1

Summary of interviewees’ attributes

Interviewees description

Nature of service subscription

Length of service relationship

1

Voice call minutes, office and home data plan

10 and 7 years respectively

2

Voice calls only

10 years

3

Voice calls and data plan


4



5



6

Voice calls only

8 years

7



8

Voice calls only

9 years

9

Voice calls, home and office data plan


10


8 years

11

Voice and data plan

5 years

12

Voice and data plan

7 years

Figure 1

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Nvivo 11 thematic analysis (see online version for colours)

Results

Our study revealed that premium customers feel that their subscribers’ segmentation strategies were cogent as they provided adequate customer care supports for users of premium services in the event of service breakdown and complaints. We found that these firms provided account relationship officers for their premium customers. The result revealed that two key themes were used for CRMS – economic and personality identities. These factors may have been used because firms were knowledgeable of the prevalent psychology of social classism in Nigeria, hence their ability to segment the Nigerian telecoms market into different groups based on economic power and personality. For example, the MTN Hynet data plan is sold for 35,000 naira only monthly whereas Nigeria national minimum wage is 18,500 naira only monthly (NBS, 2015, 2016). Implying only customers who earn well-above national wage with economic power can buy this product. Findings also revealed that four additional themes affected premium


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customers’ satisfaction [customer touch point (CTP), CV, SQ, SP]. However, these themes are grouped into short- and long-term satisfaction factors: CTP and CV are categorised under short-term satisfaction factors whilst SQ and SP are under long-term satisfaction factors. These groupings were necessary as interviewees reported that they were currently satisfied as a result of the CTP and CV services offered by their operators. But continuous improvements in SQ and SP can maintain their satisfaction and loyalty levels into the future.

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Emerging themes and definition

5.1 Theme 1: Personality identity This theme is about the experiences of interviewees with respect to how firms were able to identify and segment their expectations, based on individual differences among people of the same behavioural patterns. For example, not all private business owners were offered premium products and services. They expressed how the feeling about their status helped them in making the decision to accept or reject those service offers. Personality identity in this case relates to how firms carried out their CRMS by identifying customers within a social-economic and professional status so as to meet their status expectations. “If you walk into one of the operator’s offices as a common man operating an ordinary customer account you may not get the desired respect. I say so because Nigeria believes in class and you declare your identity it is only then they might listen and give you attention. I have tried MTN and Airtel I called them and they said oh Sir please come to the office and I went there maybe because I was wearing a T-shirt I don’t know honestly until we started talking in English and I identified my myself then a manager came out and took me in and apologized.” (Interviewee 7) “The truth is that everybody wants to be known and recognized in this country, like I had to subscribe to this MTN service because I heard from my friends who have been using it that they face less network challenge. I mean it is very expensive I must tell you, but that is the only way I can enjoy some relative service quality better than the ordinary service buyers.” (Interviewee 8) “I use a business plan for my data and mobile voice call so they call me a number of times to ask if I am enjoying their services and do I have issues with their line and router? I think once or twice they have invited me for a dinner in Port Harcourt. So I think that is exactly what you are looking or asking for I think this gesture is for a particular class of customers.” (Interviewee 5)

5.2 Theme 2: Economic identity This theme is about respondents’ reported experiences that their subscribers had segmented them based on their economic status. More specifically economic identity here refers to a class of customers that can buy premium services. “The truth is in this country we love to belong and these operators understand that some Nigerians are rich and they want to belong to a special class. That is why the kind of services they offer me is not in the public domain. I use Hynet Data plan in my office and at home in addition to the unlimited call plan which I spend at least N150,000 every month. So you can see that this is really expensive and is a reserve for a particular group of people.” (Interviewee 1)

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A.F. Wali and N.G. Nwokah “They understand the basic things that our economy signify. They know that the rich would not ordinarily want to not hobnob with services meant for poor citizens, so they would provide a class of service and put the price up so that only those with healthy account can buy it. Like I think the kind of ‘personalize services’ I receive is based on what I pay, it is not common and so also what they offer to Mr. President, Senators, Governors and Ministers may be higher than what I get because public office holders are like economic Gods and very rich, and pay lavishly more than what we pay.” (Interviewee 2) “The truth is that this data plan and call boockay I subscribe to is strictly for those who can afford it, the country’s minimum wage is N18,500 (eighteen thousand five hundred Naira) and I pay almost N130,000 (thirteen thousand Naira) monthly, meaning that an ordinary citizen cannot afford this services.” (Interviewee 3)

5.3 Theme 3: Customer touch point According to respondents this theme considers efforts by firms in ensuring that they share close interaction with their service offerings. Accordingly they opined that their subscribers understand that effective and efficient service interactions can help in contributing positively or negative to overall premium customers service experience. Therefore, they attempt to provide account relationship managers though it is not as effective as customers expected it to be. “My network service provider allocated an account officer to my account who handles my major problems. However, it is not really effective, but they are trying. I think if they can have strong customer relationship management structure like what the banks do it will be great.” (Interview 4) “I will say that the measure to put in place is customer relationship management, this because it has a lot to do with customer service. For example I use unlimited call package and pay at the end of the month, off course you know what that means in Nigeria, if I have an active relationship manager I will be very happy because I don’t have the time to visit nor call my operators when I have challenges.” (Interview 6) “MTN has an individual relationship management strategy, because while we were talking I just scrolled through my phone and I saw a number and this number calls me at times with her name as ‘Chioma’. She called me one day to say she is my account partner, she manages my account. So if I have a problem I contact her, I think they have some provision, but she has never made attempt to see me its only on the phone unlike my banks relationship managers who are always coming in.” (Interview 10)

5.4 Theme 4: Customer value This theme is about a strategy used by firms to identify and group customers of a particular social and economic class based on their lifetime value (Dwyer, 1997; Verhoef and Donkers, 2001; Jain and Singh, 2002; Hwang et al., 2004; Su-Yeon et al., 2006; Doug, 2007; Robert and David, 2009). “Just to cut the story short, I think sometimes in 2007 I received a call from MTN and the person said can I speak with you for a while? She said we can see you spend up to 20 thousand naira [N20,000] each month on mobile recharge, but we have a deal for you and that was how I got myself into it.” (Interviewee 8)


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“Operators like MTN that I use serve customers differently. For example in this Nigeria we are in today, there are people that MTN serve differently like some of my friends who buy cards and recharge would always complain of network not going through, but I hardly complain and sometimes we are together when this issues come up.” (Interviewee 9) “From my common knowledge part of the strategy of these operators is actually product differentiation because customers in my category are handled differently from the general public, but I don’t know if they have different strategy for citizens in government offices like Governors, Senators and the rest. But they have called me a number of times from their office to ask me a few questions regarding my service experience and they actually know what to do because I am paying big cash.” (Interviewee 5)

5.5 Theme 5: Service quality This theme is about what customers said about the actual quality of service they expected in comparison with what was delivered by their suppliers. They reported that their satisfaction was directly a function of the quality of service received (Greenland et al., 2006; To et al., 2013; Wang and Chou, 2013; Olatokun and Ojo; 2014; Wali and Wright, 2016). “Well I am satisfied with the services of my two subscribers for now because I do enjoy relative good quality service compared with the experiences of some of my friends who are subscribed to any of these services however there are some shortcomings with their services too.” (Interviewee 2) “In my own opinion my satisfaction is judged on the basis of having common access to quality calls for which I get even if it fails sometimes, but I believe it is better than what the general consuming public may be suffering from. For my data plan in the office yes, it serves well and at the moment it is only one of the operator’s that provides this quantum of data services.” (Interviewee 3)

5.6 Theme 6: Service price This presents the interviewees experiences and expectations about the monetary value of firms’ product and services. For example, how price influenced their decision to retain firms’ services as well as their satisfaction. From the quotes below it indicate that price have weak impact on CSAT as interviewees reports that considering their long-time value and length of subscription they expect a significant cut in their service subscription (Estelami and Bergstein, 2006; Zielke, 2008; He et al., 2008). “Like I mentioned earlier yes I have all it takes to pay the bills without complaints, but I think they can still reduce their service price even if it is by 20%. Like I have been paying for N35,000 per month for Hynet and I have two one at home and one in the office since 2010 in addition to my call plan and they have never reduced it and it is not fair, thou if you pay 6 months in bulk they give some discount but is not enough.” (Interviewee 1) “Well for call plan I will expect that they cannot reduce the monthly bill I receive because my bill is based on what I consume, but for data plan which I use in the office with fixed price I think cutting price would be of interest to us, like I can say that I was amongst the first to buy Hynet when it was first lunched but it is more than 5 years I am still paying the same amount after many years of consistent loyalty I mean it’s not good.” (Interviewee 5)

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Discussion

From our findings two main types of identities were considered in CRMS decisions – economic and personality identities. This study provides answer to Q1 and supports the argument that SIT play critical role in CRMS. Second, market segmentation based on identity factors was critical for market sustainability and add to the value of SIT (Tajfel, 1978; Turner, 1978) in developing business strategies. This is because our study recommends the inclusion of economic and personality constructs into SIT (Smith and Smith, 1999; McGarty, 2001; Ashmore et al., 2004). Hence, the need for MT firms to identify and segment customers based on needs, expectations, personality and economic status (Kleine et al., 1995; Deaux et al., 1995; Brubaker and Cooper, 2000; Forehand and Deshpande, 2001; Tracy and Tretheway, 2005; Hasan, 2006; Cleveland et al., 2011). The types of identities used by MT firms for market segmentation fills an aspect of gaps identified in literature in this paper. This finding is significant because this paper is the first in Nigerian MT sector to unravel the types of identities used for their market segmentation. The study also revealed that personality and economic identities positively affects CRMS strategy of MT firms and provides answer to Q2. The impact of these identities was driven based on CLV data (Oliver, 1980; Dwyer, 1997; Wedel and Kamakura, 1999; Verhoef and Donkers, 2001; Jain and Singh, 2002; Hwang et al., 2004; Payne and Frow, 2005; Jayachandran et al., 2005; Su-Yeon et al., 2006; Doug, 2007; Robert and David, 2009; Jeng and Bailey, 2012; Tsai et al., 2015). Finding also showed that firms were engaging CTP strategies after segmentation thus increasing premium customers’ satisfaction (White and Yu, 2005; Chang and Ku, 2009; Saarijarv et al., 2013). This finding suggest theoretical contribution for RCT as customers reported that their premium services were less affected by network problems unlike general mobile service (Donald and Shapiro, 1994; Sen, 2000; Charles and Zeiler, 2005; Lohmann, 2008; Grune-Yanoff, 2012). CTP is a strategy used by MT firms for allocating relationship officers to premium service users and according to interviewees the strategy is currently weak. Exposing poor CTP practices suggest practical implication for improving service value in this aspect. Also CRMS showed a positive impact on premium CSAT (Oliver, 1980; Westbrook, 1980; Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1988; Bloemer et al., 1999; Kotler and Armstrong, 2004; Lymperopoulos et al., 2013; Bacchiocchi et al., 2011; Pantouvakis and Bouranta, 2014). The quality of service showed a higher impact on PCSAT (Oliver, 1980 Parasuraman et al., 1988; Greenland et al., 2006; Kuusik and Varblane, 2009; To et al., 2013; Wang and Chou, 2013; Olatokun and Ojo; 2014; Wali and Wright, 2016). This indicates that services offered to premium customers were of better quality than those of standard customers. However, interviewees suggested that continuous SQ improvement into the future would influence their retention. SP and trust showed a moderate impact on premium CSAT (Estelami and Bergstein, 2006a; Zielke, 2008; He et al., 2008). Types of identities show positive influence on CSAT (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2000; Zeithaml et al., 2001; Bassi, 2007; Cheng and Chen, 2009; Wali and Wright, 2016). This may be due to the fact that these customers were identified and segmented by value, driven by their personality and economic strength, so it is expected that firms would be more committed to satisfying them. Findings and links between constructs are summarised on the thematic mind map on Figure 2.

Premium customers’ perception Figure 2

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Thematic mind map showing links and impact of CRMS on P-CSAT (see online version for colours)

Note: W– = weak support and S+ = strong support.

This study contributes to SIT (Tajfel, 1978; Turner, 1978) and RCT (Donald and Shapiro, 1994; Sen, 2000; Charles and Zeiler, 2005; Lohmann, 2008; Grune-Yanoff, 2012), as it provides a practice window which mobile telecommunications firms could leverage to improve their premium CSAT experiences. This paper is original as it is the first to report about CRMS strategies of Nigeria mobile telecoms firms for premium market. Also, it extends the value of SIT with recommendation on the inclusion of economic and personality identities into its theoretical framework which are currently lacking in literature. The SIT was conceptualised on the prediction of social interactions and behaviours of individuals without accommodating the perceived impact of economic and personality identities of individuals as a basis for continuous social interaction. Hence, social behaviour is influenced by economic and personality identities. Additionally, this study validates RCT because it reveals that individuals with latent economic power with accompanying social personality naturally expect to be offered special services. It recommends six key themes that can be tested for generalisation as it contributes to practice by increasing the understanding of using customer identity for CRMS for the purpose of improving CSAT and retention in a mobile telecoms sector. Thirdly, the results can be applied by current and potential telecoms service operators to improve their premium service offerings and competitiveness in the Nigerian telecoms sector. The study concludes that the concept of identity is imperative for use in segmenting customer markets in a telecommunications sector. Also MT operators in Nigeria employ personality and economic identity factors for segmenting their customer market, because operators understand the prevalent purchasing psychology of ‘class and status’ in the Nigerian market. Market segmentation based on identities and expectations helps in offering satisfactory services, especially premium customers. Our study recommendations rely on four key themes (SQ, SP, CTP and CV), instead of six themes,

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because the identity factors were used to initiate a strategy but are not sufficient to improve premium service experience in the long run. For SQ, we recommend MT operators to pursue a SQ improvement strategy by making services more reliable, accessible and dependable. For SP, existing market share for data services can increase if the bulk data price is reduced especially for subscribers of up to three years and discount offers for bulk quarterly subscription for old and new customers. For example, pay for three months data subscription and get one month free, which amounts to three months free subscription annually and is a good incentive for satisfaction and retention. For CTP, it is recommended for operators to be more committed to make it more effective and efficient through regular follow-up of subscribers. This is because interviewees reported that the impact of CTP services was weak. Overall, these recommendations have implication for improving premium-CSAT, firms’ profitability and sustainable competitiveness. This study was limited to only 12 private premium customers and data were collected from samples in a single city. Perhaps if samples from private premium customers in other cities across the country were collected more themes would have emerged. Second, the method of data collection and analysis was qualitative – future researchers might be interested in testing our thematic findings quantitatively in a service sector.

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