AN ASSESMENT OF FACTORS AFFECTING CUSTOMER LOYALTY; IN CASE OF EAST AFRICA BOTTLING S.C

Abstract

one of the core activity in profit oriented Company to stay in a business is having a loyal customer, the success or failure of a company depends on its customers. Having this in mind, this study was designed to assess factors affecting customers’ loyalty; the case of EABSC key account customers in Addis Ababa. The specific objectives are: To point out factors affecting customer loyalty, To assess customers attitude towards the EABSC and To find the key factors that have impact on loyalty; this research aimed to answer What is the overall satisfaction of key account customers with the EABSC?, What kind of factors influences the probability of the EABSC customers to remain loyal or to move to other company? And what is the attitude of the customers towards EABSC? This research design employed in this study was quantitative approaches both primary and secondary data collection instruments were used to collect data. Closed ended questionnaire was used for the purpose of data collection. EABSC has 5000 key account customers. Therefore, the researcher takes 370 sample populations by using formula propounded by Cochran (1963). The selections of the respondents were carried out by using purposive sampling technique because it is believed that key account customers have direct relationship with the company and have more exposure about the company therefore, researcher took all the respondents of key account customers as a total population of the study. The findings show that EABSC has more than an average score in the relationship, compliant handling and trust dimensions which had an effect on the loyalty of the customers. Though most customers rely on their relationship with company representatives which affect customer’s loyalty to the company. Generally relationship and trust have a significant role on loyalty of customers in EABSC. Trust and compliant handling are very essential aspects than other variables, and thus the student researcher highly recommends EABSC to make cooperative effort on such issues.