ENHANCING THE PARTICIPATION INTENTION AND IMPROVING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN THE BANKING INDUSTRY BY UTILIZING SOCIAL MEDIA TECHNOLOGY DUE TO THE MEDIATING ROLE OF VALUE PERCEIVED BY CUSTOMERS

This research was designed to examine the effect of using social media technology on improving participation and customer satisfaction in the banking industry due to the mediating role of value perceived by customers of the studied banks. The present study was an applied and descriptive -surveying research in terms of objective and methodology, respectively. The research statistical sample consisted of 235 senior managers of state and private banks in the banking industry of Iran. A questionnaire was employed to collect the research data, and its validity and reliability were con and Cronbach's alpha indices. The structural equation modelling method was used in the SmartPLS software to test the research hypotheses once the data was gathered. The results of testing the hypotheses demonstrated that the use of social media technology has a positive impact on improving participation intention, satisfaction, and value perceived by customers of the studied banks, which directly predicts 0.486, 0.551, and 0.568 of changes related to the participation intention, satisfaction, and perceived value, respectively. The results analysis also revealed that social media technology has a positive impact on participation intention and customer satisfaction through the value perceived by customers. Hence, the use of social media technology through the mediating variable indirectly predicts 0.517 and 0.449 of changes related to participation intention and customer satisfaction, respectively. Accordingly, one may acknowledge that the studied banks can move towards sustainable improvement of customer participation and satisfaction by accurately utilizing social media technology such as social networks aimed at boosting the continuous relationship with their customers as well as improving the capabilities of customer relationship management by related technologies.