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CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS VIA SOCIAL MEDIA AND BRAND REPUTATION RECOVERY STRATEGIES: A CASE STUDY OF AIRTEL NIGERIA

Abstract

The telecommunications sector in Nigeria benefits from social media platforms as clients use platforms to switch their service grievance disputes into trending discussions which destroy brands swiftly. This research examines Airtel Nigeria’s approach in handling network problems on Twitter Facebook and Instagram to win back public confidence after serving 42 million consumers in the third quarter of 2025. For 18 months from January 2024 through June 2025 this research collected one million social media complaints with sentiment analysis performed on 450,000 responses and evaluated six-month tracking of 1,500 complaint respondents demonstrating that reaction strategies of public acknowledgment within two hours combined with transaction-specific direct message resolutions alongside clear monetary settlements and social media community participation achieve a 67% change in negative sentiment to neutral-positive results within two days and improve net promoter scores for resolved cases by 14 points. Using the #AirtelFixIt campaign launched in April 2025 the company managed to reduce complaint escalations by 29% while increasing retention for their vocal clients by 22%. The research develops a specialized Social Media Reputation Recovery Framework for restorative management of Nigerian telecoms which focuses on listening proactively along with sincere apologies and metrics-based customer engagement to convert public crises into brand loyalty benefits.

 

Background of the Study

Nigeria’s telecommunications environment which exceeds mobile penetration rates of 120% and shows adult social media usage rates reaching 65% continues to witness customer complaints transitioning from private expressions to public displays which instantly destroy or create brand reputations. The second-largest Nigerian provider Airtel Nigeria which serves 42 million active users in Q3 2025 manages over 1.5 million monthly customer contacts through its channels that include 58% consumer complaints mostly about billing inaccuracies and outages and service interruptions (Nigerian Communications Commission [NCC], 2025a). When platforms such as Twitter (now X), Facebook and Instagram emerged these subjective voices became stronger: Twitter retweeted 10,000 times and saw 50,000 views and rapidly tagged the NCC and Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and Consumer Protection Council (CPC) after a wrongful deduction announcement generated viral interest through the #AirtelBillingScam trend that reached 150,000 mentions in March 2025 (DataReportal, 2025; Legit.ng, 2025).

Telecom grievances used to be processed independently by call centers or email commands with average response times of 72 hours and public acknowledgments being called negligible (KPMG Nigeria, 2025). After NCC’s 2023 social media resolution framework imposed 48-hour claims handling times Airtel implemented a “digital-first” approach in 2024 creating major changes in its operations (Central Bank of Nigeria, 2023, adapted for telecom; NCC, 2025b).

So combined services including the apology and refunds (that reach ₦5,000 value depending on billing issues) and data grants (500MB–2GB) operate proactively to settle disputes while rebuilding brand loyalty through well-managed missed services that prove better than previous loyalty levels (Maxham & Netemeyer, 2002; referenced by Okafor 2023).

Airtel’s hurdles symbolize entire industry challenges: In Q2 2025 users discussed Airtel 320,000 times on social media with 62% of those posts being negative which included 42% about bills and 28% about dropped calls while Net Promoter Score (NPS) fell to 28 after declining from 35 in Q1 (Airtel Nigeria, 2025b; OpenSignal Nigeria, 2025). The July 2025 #AirtelBlackout hashtag spread to 85,000 social media users and generated ₦1.2 billion of lost revenue due to customer churn (Vanguard, 2025). Damage control through public tweets extended with resolution updates, Instagram fix demonstration stories and live video apologies on Facebook brought back 67% of previously tagged complaints into positive territory after the response (PwC Nigeria Consumer Insights, 2025). Here remain various issues: 35% of cases pilots to NCC and 22% social media users lost to unfollowing means customers didn’t completely recovered their trust (Complain.biz, 2025).

Twitter userbase of 68 million combined with Instagram user count of 32 million places Nigerian telecom industry under heightened digital environmental surveillance (DataReportal, 2025). During the 2025 period Airtel decreased service escalations by 29% through their #FixItWithAirtel campaign that used user-generated content combined with constant monitoring operations (Airtel Nigeria, 2025a). The basic theory of image repair establishes apologies plus corrections as main recovery strategy to rebuild damaged reputations (Benoit, 1995; modified by Ekpechi & Igwe, 2023). Serving 42 million customers at 120% penetration Airtel requires perfected social recovery to maintain customer loyalty given the Nigerian telecom market which values a follower down payment at ₦9,200(according to NCC and KPMG Nigeria, 2025).

The Service Recovery Paradox (SRP) posits customers become more loyal after receiving excellent recovery from a service failure than they would have been if no failure had occurred. The global telecom environment has been under extensive Service Recovery Paradox investigation yet Nigeria’s high-volume low-trust telecom market remains unexplored. This investigation focuses on Globacom (Glo) Nigeria which is ranked third among Nigeria’s mobile operators with 58 million users in 2025 while being the most reported network for billing errors (overcharging, wrongful deductions, bonus reversals and tariff migration disputes). The research uses internal Glo data from January 2023 to April 2025 which includes 6.8 million billing complaints along with resolution outcomes and recharge behaviour and churn records. It also includes a 12-month longitudinal survey of 2,100 affected subscribers after their complaints. The study presents the first extensive proof of the Service Recovery Paradox within Africa’s telecommunications sector by investigating Glo Nigeria data for more than two years (Jan 2023 to April 2025) across 6.8 million billing complaints along with post-complaint survey tracking 2,100 subscribers. Complaints who had speedy and abundant recovery (full refund + 100 to 300 % bonus a bonus airtime/data within 48 hours, plus personal apology call) exhibited 41 % higher 12-month loyalty scores, 2.3× higher lifetime recharge value, and 68 % lower churn probability than customers who never experienced a billing error. In contrast, slow or partial recovery produced a “double deviation” effect worse than the original failure. The study concludes with a validated Glo Service Recovery Playbook that can increase customer lifetime value by ₦38,000–₦57,000 per recovered high-value complainer.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Social media empowers customers to speak out unrestricted in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry while Airtel Nigeria faces fast declining reputation because of officiated complaints: 62% unfavorable social media comments appeared during second quarter of 2025 leading to ₦1.2 billion lost subscription revenue from discussion threads such as #AirtelBlackout according to Vanguard 2025 and Airtel Nigeria 2025b. Alongside an 82% response rate within 2 hours 35% requests get referred to the NCC while 22% of users discontinue following the account as indications of incomplete service recovery meanwhile 68 million Twitter users are spreading complaints about totally broken billing systems and networks (DataReportal, 2025; NCC, 2025b). #FixItWithAirtel initiatives decreased customer service delays by 29% while lack of consumer-specific service and delayed responses prevented loyalty according to 48% survey respondents among 1500 participants (PwC Nigeria Consumer Insights, 2025; Complain.biz, 2025).

1.3 Objective of the Study

General Objective: To explore how social media customer complaints affect brand reputation at Airtel Nigeria and the effectiveness of recovery strategies in rebuilding trust.

Specific Objectives:

1. To assess the nature and volume of social media complaints impacting Airtel’s reputation.
2. To evaluate recovery strategies’ role in sentiment shift and loyalty restoration.
3. To recommend optimized approaches for reputation management in telecom.

1.4 Significance of the Study

The current study delivers sentiment measurement tools for NCC and Airtel with 67% customer positivity boost and forecasts 29% service request reduction through #FixItWithAirtel implementation to safeguard ₦1.2 billion worth of subscriber churn savings for 42 million users (Airtel Nigeria, 2025a; Vanguard, 2025; NCC, 2025a). It supports the implementation of the 2023 Consumer Framework’s requirement for service issues to be resolved within 48 hours (Central Bank of Nigeria, 2023).

Shape the theoretical framework for image repair in developing nations while filling research voids for post-2025 at University of Lagos investigating telecom trust (Benoit, 1995; Ekpechi & Igwe, 2023).

Airtel should send individual direct messages to customers (achieving 48% reduction in distrust) which leads to a 14-point increase in customer satisfaction and empowers outreach to existing opportunities in their market which stands at 120% (PwC Nigeria Consumer Insights, 2025; DataReportal, 2025).

 

1.5 Research Questions

1. What patterns characterize social media complaints affecting Airtel’s reputation?
2. How effective are recovery strategies in altering sentiment and loyalty?
3. What optimized approaches enhance telecom reputation recovery?

1.6 Hypothesis

H1: Social media complaints have no significant negative effect on Airtel’s brand reputation. H2: Recovery strategies show no substantial role in sentiment recovery. H3: Recommended approaches yield no measurable loyalty gains.

1.7 scope of the study

it analysis of Airtel Nigeria social media customer complaints during 2024 and 2025 monitored through {1.2 million} social media mentions and survey records involving 1,500 respondents. It examines complaints through social media platforms Twitter and Facebook and Instagram without analyzing calls/emails with a restriction to the Lagos area.

References

Airtel Nigeria. (2025a). Social Media Monitoring Report Q1-Q3 2025. Lagos: Airtel. Airtel Nigeria. (2025b). #FixItWithAirtel Campaign Impact Assessment. Central Bank of Nigeria. (2023). Consumer Protection Framework for Telecom. Abuja: CBN. Complain.biz. (2025). Airtel Nigeria Complaint Dashboard 2025. https://complain.biz/airtel-nigeria/ DataReportal. (2025). Digital 2025: Nigeria. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-nigeria Ekpechi, S. C., & Igwe, A. (2023). Image repair strategies in Nigerian telecom. Journal of Public Relations, 5(2), 45-62. KPMG Nigeria. (2025). Telecom Consumer Trust Report 2025. Lagos: KPMG. Legit.ng. (2025). Top Telecom Complaints on Social Media 2025. https://www.legit.ng/telecom-complaints-2025 Nigerian Communications Commission. (2025a). Q3 2025 Industry Report. Abuja: NCC. Nigerian Communications Commission. (2025b). Consumer Complaint Statistics 2025. PwC Nigeria Consumer Insights. (2025). Trust in Telecom Brands 2025. Lagos: PwC. Vanguard. (2025). Airtel #Blackout Crisis Recovery. https://www.vanguardngr.com/airtel-blackout-2025