Abstract
M.Comm.
The number of cellphone users in South Africa has surpassed that of fixed telephone
users (Thornton, Carrim, Mtshaulana & Reburn, 2006:23). Cellphone service providers
are engaged in price wars and vie for market share offering special deals to both
contract and non-contract customers. The three main players in this industry at the time
of the study were Vodacom, MTN and Cell C (Mungadze, 2010:1). Contract customers
are locked into contracts and switching from one service provider to another is not
always easy. Non-contract cellphone customers, however, do not commit easily, since
there are no switching costs involved and there is no legal agreement that binds them to
a particular service provider (Bolton, Kannan & Bramlet, 2000:96). The main purpose of
this study was to investigate the commitment of non-contract customers to cellphone
network service providers in the South-African.
A self-administered questionnaire was utilised for this study to gather information about
the customer commitment of non-contract cellphone users in South Africa. A
convenience sampling method was used in this study to select and co-opt 200
respondents. The research study was descriptive in nature and quantitative methods
were used to execute the empirical part of the research.
Customer commitment and four determinants or factors influencing customer
commitment namely, customer satisfaction, service quality, switching behaviour and
trust were further investigated. The findings indicated that respondents are committed to
their cellphone network service provider. The majority of the respondents have been
with their current cellphone network service provider for more than three years. Findings
indicate that there is a strong correlation between individual customer commitment and
customer satisfaction, service quality and trust. The relationship between customer
commitment and willingness to switch is slight. It can be concluded that most
respondents are committed to their network service provider and have been it for more
than three years. It can thus be recommended that the cellphone industry needs to
create an extensive retention strategy programmes to keep their loyal customers. The
cellphone business must be committed in building long-term relationship with the
customer in order to maintain existing customers. This will result in an increase in profits
for the business (Walter, Mueller & Helfert, 2000:3).