Customer Retention Determinants in Hospitality Industry in Nigeria; A Study of Customer Relationship Marketing

The objective of the study was to determine the effects of customer relationship marketing on customer retention in some selected hotels in Enugu State, Nigeria. The study drew the population from the customers of the selected hotels in Enugu Metropolis to understand the factors that makes them to be retained in the industry. Data was generated from 200 customers out of which 173 copies of the structured questionnaire were returned and qualified for use. The analytical tools used for the study comprises of; simple tables, percentages, simple regression and statistical package for social sciences (SPSS version 20). The results obtained from the study revealed that customer care, affordable service, quality services, and customer satisfaction used as sub-variables for customer relationship marketing have positive and significant effects on customer retention in the hospitality industry in Enugu metropolis. Based on the findings, the study recommended to the management of the selected hotels in the industry to deliver consistent, reliable and dependable services to their customers to gain customers trust, understanding, confidence, patronage and willingness to ensure that customers’ needs are met during and after the services are delivered. The ability to retain customers depend on the past experience gained by customers after using the firm’s services. Also, the firms should provide adequate and better communication networks that will enable them to collect and handle all complaints arising from product use, develop and maintain effective and efficient after sale services to ensure periodic calls, and visit to keep customers informed of new offers and benefits, and consistently re-evaluate performance against standard to ensure that all promises made during the transaction are fulfilled. Customers are assets to every business organization and getting them satisfied after service use makes them to be retained and loyal to the organization.