Value Based Customer Relationship Management and Satisfaction of Commercial Banks’ Account Holders in Kenya

Abstract

Customer satisfaction is a dynamic parameter for measuring business organizational success. As a modern measure for service quality, it ensures investment in development of customer focused management strategies such as value based CRM. Globally, value based CRM has been applied in the banking sector to enhance service quality and the resultant customer satisfaction which increases competitiveness, customer retention, loyalty and profitability. Despite implementation of value based CRM programs by commercial banks to increase satisfaction of account holders, customers continue to be dissatisfied with banking services. Customized services, personalized communication and complainant management are value based challenges that commercial banks have to manage in order to remain profitable and competitive. The specific objective of this study was to establish the effect of value based CRM on satisfaction of commercial banks account holders in Kenya. This study covered all commercial banks registered by Central Bank of Kenya and focused on headquarters of the banks. A sample of 400 respondents was selected from a target population of 28,324,334 account holders. This study used multiple regression analysis to establish the relationship between study variables. The study established that value based CRM had a significant positive linear relationship explaining 40.9% (R2 = 0.409) variation in satisfaction of commercial banks account holders in Kenya. Based on the findings, the study recommends that commercial banks should invest more in value based CRM strategies such as customized products and services, personalized communication and complaint management because they have a significant effect on account holder satisfaction. This study, further recommends that commercial banks should address value based CRM challenges relating to service customization, personalized communication and complaint handling which significantly affect satisfaction with banking services and profitability.