The Effect of Social Media Interactive Messaging on Customer Loyalty of Commercial Banks in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

Social media interactive messaging is rapidly becoming a major marketing practice in the corporate world. Modern organizations are recognizing the interactive nature of social media platforms as breaker of barriers that initially limited customer-company interactions. Commercial banks have not been left behind in the intensified journey of using social media platforms to interact with customers in real-time and use it a s tool to inspire customer loyalty. However, existing literature has not empirically established if adopting the social media interactive messaging can significantly customer loyalty of commercial banks in Kenya. Moreover, some banking organizations have not fully optimized interactive messaging feature of the social networking sites to inspire customer loyalty. The current study investigated the effect of social media interactive messaging on customer loyalty of commercial banks in Nairobi City County, Kenya. The study was underpinned by the honeycomb model and the technology acceptance model. A primary research methodology was applied. A closed-ended questionnaire was administered to random sample of 384 commercial bank customers. Data collected was coded and entered into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The study results revealed that social media interactive messaging has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty of commercial banks in Nairobi City County, Kenya. The study recommends that commercial banks in Kenya improve the ease of use of their social media pages to inspire customer usage for communications. Keywords: Social media, interactive messaging, commercial banks, Nairobi City County.