Social media service innovation in South African retail banking: A case study

摘要

Social media usage has exponentially increased with over 2 billion active accounts. Thus, the retail sector is utilising the platform to develop innovative services, build stronger brands and market their services and products. This has led to an increase of innovative start-ups that are beginning to encroach on the financial services sector. Consequently, banks are facing an imminent threat where they not only competing with each other, but also with pioneering Small Medium Enterprises. Social media has received a lot of attention lately, but from a branding and marketing perspective. This study took a different approach by applying competitive advantage theories to the application of social media in the retail banking sphere. The pentagon of sustained competitive advantage was proposed to understand how firms can attain a sustained competitive advantage. Results indicated that banks are operating in a volatile operating environment; customers prefer social media to complain about unsatisfactory service and favour digital channels for service provisioning. SA banks are benefiting from social media through brand awareness, customer engagement and customer feedback. Lastly, the study indicates that social media can be used to gain a competitive advantage in the SA banking sector.