Communicating Contents Among Nigerian Telecommunication Service Providers : How Has Face-to-Face Media Fared?

This study comes against the background of a trend that has seen Nigerian telecommunications service providers prominently employing face-to-face communication medium alongside other communication platforms as they convey contents of their services; ultimately seeking to recruit and retain customers in the country. Thus, placed within the framework of the media richness theory, this study unpacks the roles of face-to-face media as employed by the Nigerian Telecommunication service providers to communicate their messages and activities to the target customers. The objectives of the study are as follows: to find out how much face-to-face medium of communicating activities of telecommunications firms reach the consumers in Nigeria; to assess the extent to which the telecommunications service providers has successfully fared in attracting, recruiting and retaining their customer in Nigeria via face-to-face marketing; and to find out how much role face-to-face mode of communicating contents has fared in strengthening loyalty to the telecommunications brands among consumers. These objectives yielded three research questions. Designed as a qualitative research where two focus group discussion (FGD) sessions were conducted each in two states of Anambra (South) and Abuja (North) within Nigeria. Findings showed that there is a substantial degree of experience to face-to-face communication of the telecoms firms in Nigeria; but that this communication appears to have been more effective in consolidating the loyalty of existing customers than it has been in attracting new customers for the telecoms firms. It is established that face-to-face communication would be a sustainable alternate for customer relationship building and management. Nevertheless, just like in other forms of communication, there are intervening variables that might enhance or undermine the strength of face-to-face communication in serving this purpose. However, it would remain a valuable strategy for the Nigerian telecoms companies to continue to integrate it to serve as a complement to other communication and marketing forms; which will yield a synergy that will boost their effort towards consolidating and enhancing their market presence. The study recommended, among others, that telecoms firms in the South-Eastern Nigeria should make effort to address their deficiencies predominantly in the areas of quality of service. This will guarantee credibility required for optimising the potentials of face-to-face communication. Also, quantitative study to complement this research should be conducted with the view to generating statistics that would give precise picture of the role face-to-face communication might have played in the telecoms sector in Nigeria. Such statistical data would offer more definite insight that would be helpful to both the telecoms players and scholarship