The Effect of Customer Relationship Marketing on Customer Satisfaction: A Comparative Study on the Selected Resorts in the Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Relationship marketing provides avenues for service providers to listen and address the concerns and needs of customers in a bid to promote customer value and satisfaction. The general objective of this study was to assess the effect of relationship marketing on Customers’ satisfaction on the two hotels namely Haile and Lewi resort in the Southern Ethiopia. The study implemented cross sectional survey design. To collect primary data, structured questionnaire and semi-structured interview were used. Respondents were selected by using convenience sampling method in order to fill questionnaire. And also purposive sampling technique was used to select managers from each resort. 384 structured questionnaires were distributed to the customers of both Haile and Lewi resorts, only 365 (95%) complete responses were returned from the customers. The finding result indicates that relationship marketing dimensions (independent variables) such as trust, commitment, communication, empathy and responsiveness are positively correlated with customer satisfaction for both resorts. According to regression model summary result for Haile resort, R Square=.711 means customers satisfaction is the result of 71.1 percent change in all independent variables. And also for Lewi resort, R Square=.680 means that customer satisfaction is predicted by 68.0 percent change in all independent variables. Therefore, the findings of this thesis suggests that resorts should incorporate the relationship marketing dimensions to their marketing strategy so as to increase overall customer satisfaction and in turn to generate benefits from the relationship with customers that is currently critical to success in this dynamic business environment with increasing preferences and competition in the market.

Keywords: Customer Relationship, Marketing dimensions, Customer satisfaction, customer value

DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/53-02