The impact of digital ecosystems on customer loyalty in South African life insurance companies: A customer’s perspective

Abstract

The concept of life insurance has been in existence for thousands of years, with a business model that has remained relatively the same. Persistency or customer retention in South African life insurance companies is an ongoing concern. Advancement in technology has provided new opportunities to life insurance companies, such as online sales, improvement in service offering, and the increase in brand awareness. The literature indicates that digital ecosystems offer a new value proposition for life insurance companies to create loyal customers. This study was motivated by the high number of policy cancellations, unmet premiums and lapsed policies experienced across the insurance industry in South Africa. The study proposed that customer loyalty can be increased with the implementation of digital ecosystems, specifically in terms of the value propositions related to ease of doing business, loyalty programs and digital platforms. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the value proposition provided by digital ecosystems can create loyal customers. A quantitative research approach was used in this study. Data was collected using surveys whereby the respondents gave their responses on a structured-self-completion questionnaire that were distributed via email and WhatsApp. A random sample of n=57 was achieved. The Cronbach’s Alpha test showed there was good internal consistency reliability for the independent variables, but the dependent variable has poor internal consistency. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted and the factor loadings higher than 0.40 indicate that the constructs were valid. Multiple regression was applied to test the four research hypotheses. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant relationship between digital ecosystems and customer loyalty. Regarding individual value proposition items of digital ecosystems, ease of doing business does not have a significant relationship with customer loyalty, nor does digital platforms. Loyalty iv programs has a significant relationship with customer loyalty. The final conclusion of this research is thus that digital ecosystems do provide a value proposition which can increase customer loyalty. When a digital ecosystem consists of different value propositions, in this case, ease of doing business, loyalty programs and digital platforms, loyal customers can be created.