Relationship Marketing: A Necessary Tool for Organisational Performance
Chapter One
Objective Of The Study
The performance of an organization in the service industry is affected by its marketing strategy. The objective of this study will be to identify.
- What relationship marketing is and how it is being administered.
- The effect it has on organizational performance.
- What makes up relationship marketing
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Focus of Review
This chapter shall focus on the conceptual and empirical review of literatures related to the study.
Also, the contents of other related studies will be reviewed. They will include findings of both published and unpublished works relevant to this study. Ndagi (1999:18) consented to such a step when he advised that, “in order to set up a useful research scope, it is very important that the researcher gets familiar with the findings of previous studies”. Thus, the review will contain conceptual and empirical studies. Ndagi noted further that the review is expected to be selective. This means that the researcher must discriminate in the types of literature reviewed. Therefore, this review will examine the following issues:
Perception of Relationship Marketing and its Influence on Organizational Corporate Image.
No doubt business organizations including organizations intermittently carry out corporate image research efforts which aim to find out : how the organization is being perceived by the relevant publics of the organization’s reputation, how well it is known, the public’s likes or dislikes about the organization and how the organization stands in the face of competition (Omenugha , 2003:76).
Hence, public perception of the organization according to Omenugha (2003:77) is as important as the growth of the organizations. This is premised on the fact that potential customers are likely to patronize organizations they perceive as good. The term good may derive from the quality of service delivery or its public relations activities in the face of stiff competition. The situation however becomes of more concerned for organizations which more or less have nothing to sell but services.
Since everyone in a community is a prospective customer, it therefore as common sense dictates that efforts should not only be made but strengthened at retaining customers so as not to lose them to competitors while struggling to win the patronage of more prospective customers. This stance obviously gains support from the research findings of Kotler and Armstrong that defensive marketing typically costs less than offensive marketing because it requires a great deal of effort to hire satisfied customers away from competitors ( Kotler & Armstrong 2009: 580).
To keep the customer satisfied therefore, the organization must intermittently evaluate its service delivery mechanism to ensure that the customer needs are qualitatively satisfied, not once, not twice, but as a continuum.
According to Arens (2006: 331) It is only such that would arguably make the customer to resist the temptations from other organization competing for his patronage. In some cases, cents –off promotions, rebates and their like are used for relationships marketing. Cents-off promotions are short –term reductions in the price of a product in the form of cents-off packages, According to Arens (2006: 331) It is only such that would arguably make – cent-sales; free offers, and boy top refunds while rebates are larger cash refunds on items.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we described the research procedure for this study. A research methodology is a research process adopted or employed to systematically and scientifically present the results of a study to the research audience viz. a vis, the study beneficiaries.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Research designs are perceived to be an overall strategy adopted by the researcher whereby different components of the study are integrated in a logical manner to effectively address a research problem. In this study, the researcher employed the survey research design. This is due to the nature of the study whereby the opinion and views of people are sampled. According to Singleton & Straits, (2009), Survey research can use quantitative research strategies (e.g., using questionnaires with numerically rated items), qualitative research strategies (e.g., using open-ended questions), or both strategies (i.e., mixed methods). As it is often used to describe and explore human behaviour, surveys are therefore frequently used in social and psychological research.
POPULATION OF THE STUDY
According to Udoyen (2019), a study population is a group of elements or individuals as the case may be, who share similar characteristics. These similar features can include location, gender, age, sex or specific interest. The emphasis on study population is that it constitute of individuals or elements that are homogeneous in description.
This study was carried out to examine the Relationship Marketing: a Necessary Tool For Organisational Performance. Staff of Intercontinental Bank Plc Aba form the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
This chapter presents the analysis of data derived through the questionnaire and key informant interview administered on the respondents in the study area. The analysis and interpretation were derived from the findings of the study. The data analysis depicts the simple frequency and percentage of the respondents as well as interpretation of the information gathered. A total of One hundred and twenty (120) questionnaires were administered to respondents of which 100 were returned. The analysis of this study is based on the number returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
CONCLUSION
In this study, our focus was to carryout a critical analysis on the Relationship Marketing: A Necessary Tool For Organisational Performance. As studies showed, customer-firm relationship is a vital factor in this dynamics. Thus, relationship marketing has become a household factor in the literature and several researches aimed at proffering solution to the challenge of sustaining customers’ patronage by business organizations. As a result, this study undertook the examination of the influence of relationship marketing in customers’ patronage of banks.
The study adopted the survey research design and randomly enrolled participants in the study. A total of 100 responses were validated from the enrolled participants where all respondent are active workers in Intercontinental Bank Plc Aba.
The findings revealed that that Relationship marketing contributes to profit actualization. The findings also revealed that The operationalization of relationship marketing ensures organizational profitability
RECOMMENDATION
Based on the responses obtained, the researcher proffers the following recommendations:
The researcher recommends that bank should increase their community social responsibility efforts by providing such facilities as soft loan for small and medium scale enterprises at accessible rate since Aba is the commercial nerve centre in Abia state. This, coupled with its relationship marketing would endear especially business men to the bank. In line with its relationship marketing efforts, the bank should intermittently hold /organize lunch with various stakeholders like market women or Christian mothers with a view to further gaining their patronage.
. For the purpose of further studies however, efforts should be focused on the relationship marketing efforts of other banks as basis for a comparative analysis of different banks relationship marketing efforts and their impact on customers’ patronage.
. Moreso, further studies should focus on other areas in the state (not Aba) so as to measure the influence of differing cultures on the influence of relationship marketing efforts on customers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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