South Africa’s mobile network customers’ most pressing need is to be heard and have their problems solved personally, transparently and quickly – with social media as their key contact point with their service providers. That’s just one of the major takeaways from DataEQ’s 2026 SA Telecoms Customer Experience Index report, which analysed over 653 000 social media mentions across X, Facebook, and HelloPeter between October 2025 and March 2026. The lowest scores – across network quality and customer service – dragged the entire industry’s operational net sentiment to -8%, revealing a major gap between what providers promise to deliver and the experience customers actually have. DataEQ Analyst Tebogo Maluleke says of the results: “What separates the leaders from the rest is not just product quality. The rain team acknowledges that customer service levels can always be improved, but that also requires closer collaboration between the team receiving the query and the technical teams which address it.