CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
of the Study
Customer care Management and customer satisfaction has
long been recognized as playing a crucial role for success and survival in
today’s competitive market. In an increasing competitive and dynamic
business environment, every organization needs to identify, anticipate, satisfy
and care for customers to maximize profit, meet the requirement of stakeholders
and have competitive advantage. There is also an observable shift toward
loyalty marketing in most of the service marketing across various industries. The
early business of ensuring customer satisfaction has got undermined due to
prevailing colossal relationship orientation of business that calls for going
beyond the boundaries of satisfaction and creates commitment based association
with customer that render immunity to the business against competitive presures
(Awara, 2011).
Customer
satisfaction is very important for every organization; either they are service
sector or the privet sector. Customers are the actual agents or stakeholders
for determining or best judging the success of any product or service. Customer care Management and customers
satisfaction is two components of business operating philosophy with the
customers loyalty being the function of customer care. Customer care is an
aspect of customers relationship management. It refers to the management
approach that seeks to create, develop and enhance customers services with
careful targeted customer in order to maximize customers value, increase
loyalty and retain customers (Backs, 2005). The importance of customers care
cannot be overemphasis, it determine the competitive advantage of the firm,
market share, business expansion, growth and the profitability. It comprises
the quality of service, mode of delivery, customer’s compliant management and
customer’s satisfaction. The organizational moderation variables include the
business mission, vision, marketing orientation and the antecedent of marketing
orientation of the firm (Jones & Taylor, 2010).
The value of
customers Satisfaction for service industry such as the Eateries has been
recognized by many researchers in both the developing and the developed
marketing environment (Dong-MO, 2003), (Kassim & Abdullah, 2010), (Oyemehi
& Abiodun, 2008), (Cruana, 2002) undermined its potential effect on the
development of sustain competitor edge for the service organization.
Loyalty is
critical to the success of any service oriented that want to gain and maintain
market share. Many eateries drive large proportion of their profits from their
loyal customers. Customers care lead to loyalty that results in high customers
that lead to loyalty which results in high customer’s retentions. Customers
care lead to loyalty not only ensure repeat purchases and positive publicity
with greater value in terms of reliability but also leads to lost of other
significant benefits such as cross buying, intention, exclusive and priority
based preference to the company’s services, greater share of wallet and
provides a competitive edge to the firm (Bassey & Unmorok, 2011).
1.2
Statement of the Problem
Eateries services
are increasing in Nigeria, yet the level of failure in their service indicates
that ineffective relationship with customers seems to be pronounced such a gap
indicates that there is much to learn about how to develop close contact with
customer using the appropriate relationship strategies.
The eateries industry in Nigeria is not very
diversified in terms of the products and services they offer. This is so
because eateries in Port Harcourt offer nearly identical services. This carries
the danger of creating a situation where eateries fight for customers using all
kinds of “unethical strategies”. The ability to satisfy consumers remains one
of the greatest task for any firm to
achieve as customer needs and expectation are changing at all time.
Customer care Management can be experienced in a variety of situations and
connected to both goods and services. It
is a highly personal assessment that is greatly affected by customer
expectations. Through critical observation it has been noticed that the fast food sector is becoming
competitive as many eateries are being set up at all nocks and crannies of the society. How
then is it possible to satisfy consumers and
make them loyal customers towards a firm’s product and services?
As such, it becomes apparent that one
strategic focus that eateries can implement to remain competitive would be to
retain as many customers as possible through satisfying their customer.
But the question is, how do eateries retain
their customers when they offer identical services that encourages customer
deflecting from one eatery to another? The inability of eateries to provide
innovative and unique services that will meet individual client needs as
against providing similar services like other eateries impede against customer
loyalty in no small ways and makes customer retention through satisfaction in
eateries complex and difficult. Hence
the need to assess customer care and retention strategies of eateries in Rivers
state becomes imperative.
1.3 Purpose
of the Study
The general
purpose is to examine the effect of customer care Management on Customer
Satisfaction in eateries while the specific sub-objectives are:
1. To determine the extent to
which responsiveness influences Customer Satisfaction in eateries in Port
Harcourt.
2 To ascertain extent to which
customer compliant Handling influences Customer Satisfaction in eateries in
Port Harcourt.
1.4 Research Questions
From the above
specific objectives, the following research questions are formulated:
1. to what extent does
Responsiveness enhances customer satisfaction in eateries in Port Harcourt?
2 To what extent does customer
complaint Handling enhances customer satisfaction in eateries in Port Harcourt?
1.5 Conceptual Framework of
Customer Care Management on Customer Satisfaction in Selected Eateries in Port
Harcourt
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Customer
complaint handling
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Source: Researchers Desk, 2015
1.6 Research
Hypotheses
The following null hypotheses are formulated from the above specific
objectives:
H01: There is no significant relationship between
Responsiveness and Customer loyalty in eateries in Port Harcourt.
H02: There is no significant relationship between
Customer Compliant Handling and customer retention in eateries in Port
Harcourt.
1.7 Scope of the Study
The general scope of this study covers customer care
Management and Customer Satisfaction. The geographical scope is Rivers State of
Nigeria. The units of analysis covers randomly selected customers of eateries
services in Port Harcourt Rivers State.
1.8 Significance of the Study
A thorough understanding and knowledge of the
factors that have impact on customer satisfaction are very useful in guiding
eateries owners and managers to design and deliver the right offering and
strategies. This research has many future implications. It has potential to
check the moderating effect of culture sensitivity and also it can determine
the mediating role of customer satisfaction and its impact on brand or customer
loyalty in further. This will be of unique in terms of local environment and
will have many implications for eateries owners, managers and researchers of
particular community. This study will be significant to the following:
1. The marketing managers:
marketing involve a wise scope of activities aimed at achieving organizational
sales objectives. This study will therefore be significant to the marketing
managers in effective implementation of marketing policies.
2. Policy makers: this study
will be significant to the policy in making polices concerning advertisement.
3. The academicians: to the
academicians the study will serve as reference point and contribute to the
existing body of knowledge.
1.9 Limitation of the Study
The researcher was
faced with the following constraints in carrying out this study:
Time: The time within
the researcher is too short to carry on the detail study on this topic.
Resources: Another
constraint of the researcher is financial resources to carry on the detail
study of this topic.
Data: another limitation to this study will be
lack of data to make valid study on the research problem.
1.10 Definition Of Terms
Customer Care Management is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase the symbol construct created with the
mind of people, consisting of all the information and expectations associated
with a product, service or the company.
Customer
satisfaction: is
complicate to define because normally it is extenuated by expectation.
Customers will be satisfied if the product or service above demands or
expectation.” On the other hand, if the product or service below demands or
expectation, customer will be dissatisfied (Schmitt 2003, 13) Satisfaction is
also the feedback that given by the customers about the products’ or services’
quality and assessment of the products or service itself.
Customer loyalty
shows a customer’s positive attitude for the repeating buying behavior on
certain product or service