Investigation of customer churn insights and intelligence from social media: a netnographic research

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the distinct reasons and more common reasons that reduce customer satisfaction and are antecedents to customer churn behavior in the telecommunication industry.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted the netnography approach to investigate churn behavior by utilizing online user-generated content in qualified social media communities.FindingsThe investigation revealed that “data speed issue”, “ineffective relationship building”, “service area coverage issues” and “billing issues” are some of the most important attributes that influence a consumers' decision to churn. Further, the churn consequence influencers model summarizes the attributes that contribute to overall dissatisfaction and finally results in churn behavior. The study found out the application of the netnography approach in a quantitatively dominant research area and stands out with its insights from a rich qualitative data.Practical implicationsProper clarification of customer expectations and pain points can help reduce customer churn. The study will serve as the basis for developing future churn prediction models that will contribute to the informed decision-making process.Originality/valueContributing to research on customer churn behavior, the study offers a novel attempt to study customer satisfaction and customer churn behavior jointly. The paper is the first attempt that contributes to the extant literature by adopting the unique qualitative approach to understand the reasons for telecommunication churn behavior in the emerging Indian market. Another contribution of this research is that the paper shifts the focus of the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) literature to the telecommunications industry, thus adding another block to ongoing research in eWOM communication.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ OIR-02-2020-0048