Factors Affecting Customer Satisfaction with The Telecommunication Industry in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Telecommunications is a customer-oriented industry in which client satisfaction is crucial for an organization's survival. Social media plays a vital role in customer decisions, acting as both a search tool and a communication channel. On social media platforms, customers can air their grievances, and a company can use these complaints to improve its products and services. During the first quarter of 2022, sentiment analysis was conducted to evaluate customer satisfaction with telecom services in Saudi Arabia. With a machine-learning approach, more than 90K comments were recorded and categorized as positive, negative, or neutral. For the classification, we utilised a support vector machine (SVM) model with an average accuracy of 88%. After that, We utilised thematic analysis of social engagement opinions. We identified seven themes among the comments related to factors affecting efficiency and satisfaction with telecommunications services: product, package, price, promotion, place, people, and public relations. In conclusion, we recommend some solutions to improve efficiency and increase customer satisfaction in the telecom sector.