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It seems South Africans are most satisfied with media driven social media sites, while conversation driven sites achieved an average score and hybrid social media sites scored below par, according to the latest South African Customer Satisfaction Index released today.

Over 820 consumers were included in the SAcsi online survey which gave social media an overall index score of 72.7 out of 100. The data was collected in October 2015.

Media driven sites scored 76.2 out of 100 and include Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram. Conversation driven sites – Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn - scored 72.8 out of 100. The only hybrid social media site (contains both conversation and media driven content) is Facebook and it scored 69.6 out of 100.

Prof. Adré Schreuder, founder of SAcsi and CEO of Consulta, says that the level of complaints recorded in the study is the lowest recorded in the SAcsi at just 4.1% of users. This could be due to consumers viewing social media sites as a platform for complaints, rather than something consumers complain about.

He says that we are seeing the beginning of the visual revolution in South Africa in terms of social media platforms. “The number of YouTube and Instagram users has grown exponentially in the past year because people love pictures. They process images much faster than text and easy navigation makes such sites even more attractive. In fact, ease of navigation emerged as a top attribute for general user satisfaction. YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest scored highest at 81 out of 100 for this attribute. Although Facebook received low scores for the amount of advertising and perceived ability to protect user privacy, it scored high on the ease of using the site on different devices such as smartphones and tablets,” says Prof Schreuder.

The findings above correlate with the findings of the SA Social Media Landscape study 2015 conducted by World Wide Worx and Fuseware. This indicated that despite Facebook remaining the most used network in South Africa, it is in fact media-driven platforms which are showing much higher growth rates.

Net Promoter Scores indicate the likelihood of customers to recommend a particular brand. Media driven social media platforms have the highest NPS at 30.2%, conversation driven platforms scored 18.5% and the hybrid site, Facebook, scored just 5.1%.

USA comparison
South Africa’s score is very close to the American customer satisfaction score of 74 out of 100, which also indicated that YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest were given the highest scores for customer experience.

About the research methodology

SAcsi is an independent index. As such, no specific sponsor or client commissioned this survey. SAcsi releases monthly satisfaction indices to provide a national economic indicator of customer satisfaction with the quality of products and services available to household consumers in South Africa. Subscribing members have access to the full results.

Summaries of the industry level reports are available on www.sacsi.co.za