Relationship Marketing Practices on Performance of Commercial Banks in Kenya

Abstract

Banking as a service industry has recently experienced a tremendous growth through profits, ongoing deposits and revenues. This trend has had a significant influence on competition in the industry. Even so, Bank have successfully tried to brave the stiff competition even to stand out as one of the most successful Kenyan businesses. At the wake of this competition, relationship marketing practices have helped organizations establish durable and unending associations with their customers. This study was conducted to analyze the extent to which relationship marketing practices employed by Banks influence performance in the growing banking industry. A descriptive cross sectional research design was adopted. The target population comprised of 88 employees who are based at the bank headquarters in the following departments; customer service, corporate affairs, finance department, business development, operations and credit and risk department. The study employed a structured questionnaire to collect data. The research instrument was pilot tested with the aim of assessing both its reliability and validity. The collected data was analyzed with the aid of the SPSS software. The findings revealed that 88% of the respondents ascribed to the view that communication, been an aspect of marketing translated to a relative influence on the outcome of the bank’s performance. This means that performance of the bank is positively correlated to the marketing communication mix strategies employed by the bank.

Keywords: Commercial banks, Communication, Service Differentiation, Service Quality.