Technology-Induced Customer Services in the Developing Countries

Abstract

The emergence of the internet has signaled the coming of a new era in the history of cultural transmission. Indeed, a baffling array of industries have adopted and implemented internet technologies in tandem with its prototypical subsets, especially in developed countries. Whilst there has been some surge in the adoption and implementation of internet businesses in developing countries, it appears that these countries are still lagging behind in the delivery of technologically-induced customer services. Despite the bifurcation between the level of internet adoption and implementation, most extant literature related to understanding the dynamics of customer services in technologically induced environments is dominated by scholars and practitioners in developed countries. This dominance has not only provided a truncated view of prevailing trends, but has obscured unique evolving business models from sub-Saharan countries. Drawing on an interpretivist ethnographic methodological approach emerging through an interest in the origins of culture and civilisation, primarily through analysis of (primitive) societies, this chapter provides a background on the sub-Saharan perspective on general technologically induced environments, which is necessary to formulate the basis for a contemporary sub-Saharan e-business model. The aim is to look afresh at problems faced by the banking sector in the delivery of services to customers, and to demonstrate how these users might brace themselves generatively to meet the challenges it poses.