RELATIONSHIP MARKETING, CORPORATE BRANDING, SERVICE QUALITY, AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN KENYA

Abstract

The world over, businesses constantly strive towards the enhancement of customer satisfaction through heightened competitiveness and improvement of service delivery. Customer satisfaction is important in the creation and maintenance of competitive advantage in the banking sector. The realization that there are many economic advantages ascribed to retaining satisfied customers as opposed to looking for new customers has made commercial banks pay attention to customer satisfaction in order to remain competitive. This happens when commercial banks make sure that the existing customers are satisfied. They do that through relationship marketing to attract and retain more customers. The general objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of relationship marketing, corporate branding, and service quality on customer satisfaction of commercial banks in Kenya. The study was anchored on the commitment-trust, assimilation, Heider’s balance, and expectation disconfirmation theories. The study was guided by the positivist philosophy and adopted the explanatory research design. The target population was the commercial banks customers in Kenya. A total of 602 customers were sampled proportionately from the 39 commercial banks in Kenya. The study used a questionnaire as the data collection instrument. Structural equation modeling was used to ascertain the relationship between the various variables. The mediation effect of service quality and corporate branding on the relationship between relationship marketing and customer satisfaction of commercial banks in Kenya was ascertained using three regression models. The findings of the study revealed that relationship marketing, service quality, and corporate branding have a positive and statistically significant relationship with customer satisfaction of the commercial banks in Kenya. Furthermore, service quality and corporate branding had a partial mediating effect on the relationship between relationship marketing and customer satisfaction of commercial banks in Kenya. The study recommends that the commercial banks in Kenya participate in community activities, reward customers, adopt biometrics security mechanisms, enhance mobile banking, use modern banking equipment and appealing banking facilities, hire competent employees, and hold regular exhibitions of their products and services. The study findings make implications to policy and practitioners regarding the significance of relationship marketing, service quality, and corporate branding on customer satisfaction.