The impact of customer engagement on organisational change communication at Absa bank in greater Durban area

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Introduction
Recent developments in the South African banking sector have led to the renewed research interests in retail banking.Over the years retail banking has proved to be the most dynamic financial sector in the world.It is basically an open system, which continuously interacts with different stakeholders from its external environment (Sezgin, Tosun and Pamir, 2015).In the South African context, the retail banking sector has over the years experienced rapid growth, but due to external pressures caused by uncertain economic outlook, rising regulatory costs, the threat of new entrants into the market and the constantly changing demands and behaviour of customers the growth trajectory has been affected negatively (Williams, 2016).
Central to the entire discipline of retail banking is the concept of customer engagement and the recent developments at Absa bank have heightened the renewed research interest for customer engagement in the South African retail banking sector.According to Banyte and Dovaliene (2014:484) competition in the South African retail banking sector has caused the top 5 banks (Absa bank, Standard bank, Capitec bank, FNB and Nedbank) to explore new ways of attracting and retaining customers.In addition, throughout the years, South African retail banks have come to the realisation that their customers are integral stakeholders that give them a 93 competitive advantage in the sector and that a customer centric approach in retail banking should be embedded in the overall banking operations (Williams, 2016).
According to Gupta (2012:108) the contemporary customers have easy access to competitor information, are price sensitive, and not easily convinced by advertising and marketing efforts, thus making them hard to win and maintain.Resultantly, retail banks that aim to have competitive advantage in this challenging environment must foster lasting relationships with their customer base (Sashi, 2012).Tripathi (2014) pioneering study postulates that customer engagement plays a pivotal role in fostering long lasting relationships between organisations and customers.A study by Gallup (2013) a leading customer engagement consulting firm provided an overview of the importance of customer engagement, indicating that customers that are adequately engaged symbolize a significant premium of 23% with regards to share of wallet, revenue, profitability, and relationship growth.On the other hand, disengaged customers symbolise a 13% discount in the same measure.This is also supported by academic practitioners who concur that investing in customer engagement adds value to the organization (Williams, 2016).
According to Ernest and Young (2012) events that have unfolded in the past decadethe ease of new entrants into the banking sector, uncertain economic outlook, the 2008 global financial crisis and competition within the South African banking sector, have significantly changed the banking sector in South Africa.Petzer et al. (2016) pointed out that retail banks are under tremendous pressure to realign their business models and banking operations to meet these challenges and changes.
Conforming to the mounting pressure in the South African retail banking space, Barclays bank PLC a major shareholder in Barclays Africa Group (now Absa bank) announced its departure from Barclays Africa Group.A move that will make Barclays Africa Group lose its strategic business partner with over 100 years of experience working in Africa (Barclays Africa Group, 2017).The announcement of the separation was received mixed reactions and emotions by customers (BusinessTech, 2015).A study by Tripathi (2009:133) study found that the uncertainty faced by customers that during organisational change (separation) processes compel customers to consider switching to other banks.This suggests if organisational change processes are not communicated to customers adequately and on time, it can affect the bank negatively.This is supported by Pansari and Kumar (2017) who indicated that organisational change is a catalyst in misaligning the goals of customers and organisations.
In the South African banking sector context, research on customer engagement is still in its infancy and no study has been undertaken between customer engagement organisation change communication.This paucity of research is a cause of concern in the South African banking sector and to address this research gap, this paper seeks to determine the impact of customer engagement on organisational change communication at Absa bank in the greater Durban area.
The aim of this paper is to determine the impact of customer engagement on organisational change communication at Absa bank in the greater Durban area.To address the main aim of the paper, the following hypothesis were formulated: i.
Customer engagement practices have a positive relationship with organisational change communication.
The hypothesis was further broken into the following 4 sub hypothesis: i.
Employee service behaviour has a positive relationship with organisational change communication. ii.
Personal involvement has a positive relationship with organisational change communication.
iii.Ethnic inclusion has a positive relationship with organisational change communication.

iv.
Service quality has a positive relationship with organisational change communication.
This paper is structured as follows: after the introduction, aim and hypothesis of the study, there is a literature review including theoretical and empirical research that throw light on the relationship between theory and practice.The third section provides context for the research and approach.The paper the presents the findings.This is followed by analysis and discussion section.Finally, conclusions, recommendations, future research paths, and limitations of the study are discussed.

Literature Review
The literature review explained the empirical literature that was used to support the study.The literature is aligned with the objectives of the study.

Customer engagement practices
Customer engagement, according to Brodie et al. (2011), is about establishing an emotional connection with your customers.
According to Pansari and Kumar (2017), customer experience is the most critical area of attention for more than half of merchants (54 percent).The more engaged a consumer is, the more likely they are to spend more, return more frequently, and recommend your company to their friends.Customer engagement techniques have been related to financial, reputational, and competitive advantages (Kumar and Pansari, 2016).While exact customer engagement practices differ by industry and firm, the following are some best practices gleaned through research: service quality, customer involvement, ethnic inclusivity, and service employee's behaviour (Van Doorn et al. 2010).

Employee service behaviour
A review of the literature revealed that many research projects have sought to investigate the idea of employee behaviour and its connection to organisational change communication.Fleck and Inceoglu (2010) found that motivated workers are more likely to put in extra effort, make additional contributions, and go above and beyond their regular duties, all of which benefit their organizations.
Putting forth effort implies that motivated workers give their all to their primary positions.They might put all their effort and focus into their individual responsibilities as service employees (Young et al., 2018).When an employee goes above and beyond to finish a task, they are said to be making extra contributions.In interactions with customers, these people are more likely to be concerned about their needs and work to deliver better service (Gazzoli et al., 2013).
Secondly, because they recognize their responsibility to assist customers (Yagil and Medler-Liraz, 2013) and perceive participation in their duties as a critical step toward improving service content, engaged service professionals may put up a large amount of effort on core service activities (Bakker et al., 2012).Moreover, highly engaged workers are more active, passionate, and invested in the customer service procedures (Sonnentag et al., 2019).
Engaged staff go above and above to satisfy customer demands and offer personalized service recommendations to make clients feel unique (Eldor and Harpaz, 2016).In other words, committed workers are more likely to display customer-oriented behaviour, which is the practice of going above and beyond to meet the needs of clients when interacting with them for services (Rafaeli et al., 2008).
According to Wang and Kebede (2020) people's willingness to participate in a change process is referred to as change readiness.
Employees are often hesitant to participate in the process if they are not properly informed about the change and why it is necessary.
Communication ensures that all employees in the organization share the same vision of the future that the change promises.

Service quality
For Puriwa and Tripopsakul (2014) service quality is a critical characteristic for establishing a competitive edge, particularly in service-related businesses.Firms that provide outstanding service quality will have a high level of client satisfaction and loyalty (Hung et al., 2003).For Harimurti and Suryani (2019) service quality plays a crucial role in establishing a competitive edge in the banking business.Because it is difficult to differentiate products in the banking sector, service quality has become one of the attributes used to distinguish one bank from another.According to Khorshidi, Naghash, and Mohammadian (2014), strong service quality allows banks to gain a competitive edge.According to Smith (2010) organizations with a service quality emphasis are concerned with constantly communicating and improving organizational performance and effectiveness -actively striving to examine, assess, improve, and maintain all elements of the organizational change.

Involvement
Involving employees in the change process can enhance communication of organisational change (Robbins and Judge, 2016).Change necessitates the involvement of a significant number of people who believe in the project's goal and want to be a part of it (Kotter, 1995).Involved people outperform uninvolved people, and for change initiative efforts to be successful, the workforce must be involved (Robbins and Judge, 2016).Employee involvement improves workers' participation into choices that affect their well-being and organizational change initiatives.An increasing corpus of studies demonstrates that employee involvement has a good impact on change implementation (Hussain, 2013).

Ethnic Inclusivity
According to Bozkurt, Gligor and Hollebeek ( 2021) "that component of an individual's self-concept that originates from [his/her] knowledge of [his/her] participation in (a) social group(s), coupled with the value and emotional significance associated to that membership,".According to Bozkurt et al. ( 2021) individuals typically utilise demographic features (e.g., gender/ethnicity) to categorise people due to their plainly apparent, physical nature.People prefer to utilise these characteristics as a basis for social comparison, with demographically similar persons more inclined to share information with one another.With globalization comes the challenge of interacting with people of various cultural and racial backgrounds.According to Martin and Nakayama (2007), many people's most frequent communication encounters with people of other ethnic, racial, and national backgrounds occur at work.Similarly, Clive (2007) and Hunt (2011) asserted that workplaces are the only places where people from many cultures may come together and collaborate, which revitalizes and broadens an organization's relevance.

Organisational change communication
According to Broca and Baesu ( 2014  Formal communication channels are used within the organisation.
Informal communication channels occur where information is transmitted through the organisation's "grape vine".
Decoding is the process whereby the receiver interprets and understands the message.The receivers' ability to decode the message would depend on listening, reading and comprehension skills.Differences in background, culture, training, etc., often lead to messages being misinterpreted by the receiver and it is therefore vital to have feedback between sender and receiver.Feedback is the reaction or response to a message.It allows the receiver to ask questions, make comments, and ask for help or for the message to be repeated to clarify aspects of the message which may not be clear.

Feedback allows for two-way communication.
When you ask each member of your team to submit a specific report, the receipt of the report is considered feedback.When feedback is not used, you never know if the message was received correctly.As a result, a lack of input increases the possibility of mistakes and distortions (Beattie and Ellis, 2014).

Conceptual framework
This study is guided by the conceptual framework depicted in Figure 3.

Brief Research design and methodology
The purpose of the study to conduct an empirical investigation on customer engagement practices and how it enhances organisational change communication at Absa bank in greater Durban area.The investigation took a positivist worldview, and a quantitative research design was used.The data for this study was gathered using a structured closed-ended questionnaire and the survey method.Flick (2011:139) highlighted that a questionnaire enables quantitative data to be collected in a similar way to ensure that data is internally consistent.In this investigation, convenience sampling was utilized.The strategy was appropriate for our investigation because it is simple to implement and inexpensive.Participants were walk-in consumers at Absa bank branches in and around Durban.The convenience sample method was used to distribute 384 surveys.Out of the 384 surveys distributed, 274 were completed and returned, yielding a 71% response rate.

Analysis of data
The responses from the research participants were analysed using the latest version of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24. were subjected to quantitative analysis to strongly validate the findings.Both descriptive and inferential statistics were required for this.The section starts by discussing customer engagement constructs which are service quality, employee efficiency, personal involvement, and ethnic inclusion.In essence the above co-efficients are deemed acceptable for further analysis.

Findings and Discussions
Findings section may be divided by subheadings.Footnotes should not be used and must be transferred to the main text.The is significant agreement on all the items that are measuring service quality.The is significant agreement on all the items that are measuring service employee efficiency.The is significant agreement on all the items that are measuring personal involvement.The is significant agreement on all the items that are measuring ethnic inclusivity.The is significant agreement on all the items that are measuring organisational change communication.

Hypothesis Testing
Following the determination of the study's descriptive statistics, inferential statistics were used to test the research hypotheses to discover the nature of the correlations between customer engagement practices and organisational change communication.The underlying relationships were measured using regression and correlation analysis.The customer engagement variables are service quality (SQ), Employee behaviour (EE), Involvement (PI) and Ethnic inclusion (EI).Results from the SEM model highlight that there is a positive significant relationship between service quality and organisational change communication.These findings concur with findings by Ntsatsi and Parumasur (2013) which found that service quality positively influences organisational change communication.The hypothesis is therefore accepted.
H1: Employee efficiency has a positive effect on organisational change communication.
Results from the SEM model shows that there is no relationship between employee efficiency and organisational change communication.Thus, the hypothesis is rejected.
H2: Personal involvement has a positive relationship with organisational change communication.
As shown from the SEM model in the figure above there is no relationship between Personal Involvement and organisational change communication.Thus, the hypothesis is rejected.

H3: Ethnic inclusion has a positive effect on organisational change communication.
From the SEM model above, there is no relationship between ethnic Inclusion and organisational change.As a result, the hypothesis is rejected.

Discussion
These findings from the empirical investigation make several contributions to the existing literature.It emerged that customers values retail banks that keep their promises.According to Madikane (2005) customers prefer to do business with a retail bank that keeps its promises.According to Deilotte (2013) all financial businesses should make it a priority to become more customer centric and fulfil their promises.As this can be a catalyst for growth and profitability in the current hard economic environment, as well as a tool for defending against competitors and end ensuring financial services companies fulfil their regulatory promises.
Additionally, the findings from the empirical study provides important insights on the richness of content on Absa bank communications.According to Parajuli, Paudel and Devkota (2020) good communication will aid in the improvement and building of relationships with customers, as well as formation of a team capable of delivering meaningful results that lead to organisational success.A study by Manish (2017) highlighted that retail banking success can be attributed to detailed communication to customers.
The study revealed that a retail bank can use communication to inform its numerous customer base about products and services offered by the bank, as well as to establish a positive image of the bank and establish brand image in the eyes of customers.
The findings from the current study provide strong empirical confirmation that trust is an important aspect in retail banking.This is also supported by a study by Kosiba, Boateng, Amartey Boakye and Hinson (2018) who expressed that given the importance of trustworthiness in customer expectations and obligations in social relationships such as customer engagement, retail banks must provide a trustworthy environment for customers to connect with their organisations to remain loyal to them.More so, the findings illustrate how it is important for retail banks to provide products and services that are reliable.Stiakakis and Georgiadis (2009) identified reliability as a key requirement in retail banking.According to Hoang (2018) reliability infers the ability of the retail banks to deliver services on time and correctly the first time, as well as the ability to ensure that the service is delivered exactly as promised.
It also emerged that service turnaround is of paramount importance in retail banking.Together these results provide important insights in the importance of service turn around in retail banking.A study by Mbawuni and Nimako (2017) highlighted the importance of customer waiting time management stems from the fact that customers' perceptions of service providers waiting times may have an impact an impact on their current and future relationships with them.The study also found out that customers who are satisfied with the turnaround time they must wait for services are more likely to become loyal to the company and would want to do more business with it soon.A study by Bashir and Ramay (2010) revealed that employees who are happy and energetic are more committed to their work and project a positive image of the organisation.
The most obvious to emerge from the analysis is that Absa bank notified its customer base about the organisational change that was taking place.According to Management Study Guide (2022), communication is the crucial and one of the most challenging elements for successfully conducting a change program since it entails an interchange of ideas and feelings with individuals in an organization via numerous means.These findings should help us better appreciate the importance of organisational change communication in retail banking.The results from the study insinuate that Absa timeously informed its customers of the changes taking place.
he findings from the study infer that from time-to-time Absa regularly communicated about the change to its customers.Throughout the organisational change process Absa bank issued communiques updating its customers about events taking place in the organisation.The findings from the study insinuate that Absa has adequate platforms for customers to give feedback to the bank about the organisational change.This new understanding should help to improve predictions of the impact of engagement platforms in providing feedback.Additionally, this study adds to the growing body of research that indicates how engagement channels provide useful feedback to businesses.These results mirror those by Maharaj, Cowden and Karodia (2015) which highlighted that Absa's retail banking strategy revolves around putting customers first in everything they do.They want to be able to meet the banking and lifestyle needs of customers.Absa use social media sites to gather information, change taking place.The contribution of this thesis is to provide deeper insights on the most used channel of engagement currently used by Absa bank.Drawing from the findings of the study, most of the customers attest that Absa bank uses various engagement platforms for communication purposes.
These findings are consistent with that of Coetzee, van Zyl and Tait (2013) who indicated that the time it takes to decide in response to a client's query, complacent or application must be reduced.This provides some explanation as to why management must ensure that service employees have clear job descriptions such as the ability to reduce the bank's current turnaround times for decisions.This combination of findings provides some support for the conceptual premise that empowering service employees to be efficient and offer service is an essential in competitive South Africa banking industry.

Conclusions
The researcher came to the following conclusions about Absa Bank's customer engagement practises in the greater Durban area.First and foremost, the branches were well prepared for the organisational change that was being implemented throughout the greater Durban area.According to the findings of the study, Absa bank's customer engagement practices included service quality, service employee efficiency, personal involvement, and ethnic inclusivity.There is compelling evidence that the branches had robust mechanisms and platforms in place to engage with customers throughout the organisational change process.According to the findings, many of the sample respondents agreed that Absa bank engaged in extensive and open communication about organisational change processes.The study's main findings revealed that respondents received timely and adequate communication from Absa bank regarding the organisational change processes that occurred.The researcher concluded that Absa bank had adequately prepared for the organisational change and that information was disseminated to customers on time at each stage of the process.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Customer engagement practices; Source: Chitamba (2023) ), communication encourages cooperation between employers and employees, which in turn fosters cooperation and industrial peace with customers.Without efficient communication between the manager and their employees, the cornerstone of leadership cannot exist(Bodie and Crick, 2014).Their ability to communicate with one another helps to maintain their interpersonal bond.According to Ishaq et al. (2011) good business communication is required for the formation of a team that will lead to the success of a company.Good communication also helps to avoid workplace misunderstandings(Bodie and Crick,  2014).According to Beattie and Ellis (2014) when employees can communicate effectively with one another, misunderstandings can be resolved amicably.Unnecessary friction is also avoided.Employees will be able to focus better on their work because of this.Customers are more likely to continue doing business with a company that interacts well with them and responds quickly to their needs (Bodie and Crick, 2014).

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Organisational change communication model; Source: Beattie and Ellis (2014) According to Beattie and Ellis (2014) the Model in figure 4.2 depicts the process of change communication, incorporating the element of feedbackthe vital factor used to ensure the communication was received and understood.From the figure above, the sender encodes the message by putting the information to be transmitted into a certain format before sending it.Encoding can involve planning, choice of words and symbols, sequencing, meaning and emotions.The message is the writing, words and gestures used to transfer the information through a channel to the receiver.

Kaiser Measure Olkin Measure (KMO) of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's Test for Sphericity Customer engagement
Two tests that determine the factorability of the inter-correlation matrix are KMO and Bartlett' Sphericity test.The KMO test is a measure of how data is suitable for factor analysis(Cerny and Kaiser, 1997).The test measures the adequacy of the sample for each model variable.The KMO should be greater than 0,5.According to Peri (2012) Bartlett's Test of Sphericity relates to the significance of the study and demonstrates the validity and suitability of the responses collected about the problem being addressed by the study.The result of the Bartlett's test should be 0,05.For this section, KMO and Bartlett's test are explained in table below:

Table 1 :
KMO and Bartlett'sTest Customer engagement Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) of .880indicates that the data was adequate for successful and reliable extraction.In addition, a significant Bartlett's test (p<.05)indicates that correlations between items are not too low for reliable extraction.

KMO and Bartlett' Sphericity test Organisational change communication.Table 2 :
KMO and Bartlett's Test-Organisational change communicationTo test if the items in each construct are internally consistent, reliability of the composite measure is tested by calculating Cronchbach's alpha for each construct.According to Potgieter, Weise and Strasheim (2013) satisfactory reliability co-efficient exceeds 0,60, acceptable ones are above 0,70 and good figures are those beyond 0,80.A summary of the results are depicted in the table below:

Table 4 :
Service quality construct

Table 5 :
Service employee's efficiency

Table 8 :
Organisational change communication