A Netnographic Analysis of Online Reviews of Restaurant Service in Botswana

Abstract

This paper re-visits the notion of restaurant service performance in Botswana. The primary point of departure from Manwa’s work is that this paper employs Kozinets’ netnographic procedure to achieve its main objective, of identifying online communities’ displeasure with restaurant services in Botswana. A special emphasis is placed on an a priori coding exercise. The paper specifically analyses 290 TripAdvisor reviews of the restaurant services in Gaborone classified as ‘poor’ and ‘terrible’. The sample comments used, indicate the prevalence of failures in the service delivery system. Gaining knowledge on the types of service failures is necessary when understanding service failure contexts and useful in developing systems for service recovery in Botswana. This paper is therefore valuable as it sets the basis for the recognition of service recovery models that could be appropriate for restaurant diners in Botswana.