Customers Reactions on Service Delivery by Major Telecommunications Operators in Nigerian Newspapers

Data from the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) stated that MTN lost a record of 667,245 Internet subscribers in one month in 2019.Figure shows that MTN’s total Internet subscribers stood at 52.2 million in July 2019 while the number dropped to 51.6 million in August 2019. It was observed that customers’ reactions bordered on issues ranging from unsolicited calls and short message services (SMS), unsubstantiated deductions of call credit units, poor service connection, network failure, cumbersome SIM swap process among others. This paper, thus, examines two Nigerian national dailies-The Punch and The Nation newspapers coverage of customers’ reaction to mobile telecommunication network services from 2015 to 2017. Using the content analysis research method, the study is anchored on the Social Exchange theory. The findings revealed a significant pattern of more negative than positive reactions by subscribers within the years under study. The negative complaints were high in 2015, dropped significantly in 2016, and rose again in 2017. On this, MTN recorded 15 (or 32%); Airtel 13 (or 28%), Glo10 (or 21%), while Etisalat (now 9Mobile) was 9 (or 19%), as against Etisalat (9 Mobile), 9 (or 19%), Glo 4 (or 8%) and Airtel 3 (or 6%) positive reactions by the customers during the period. Study thus recommends that Nigerian newspapers should once in a while carryout a survey on quality of service delivery by GSM operators and use such stories on the front page of their respective newspapers.