Impact of Relationship Marketing Practices on Customer Retention in the Insurance Industry in Kenya
Abstract
Insurance companies need sound systems of marketing strategies implementation to
achieve a competitive edge over the competitors and to achieve results within the
envir
onment in which they operate.
The study aimed at finding out the impact of
relationship marketing practices on customer retention in insurance
companies
in Kenya.
It was directed by the following objectives;
t
o establish the relationship marketing
practice
s adopted by insurance companies in Kenya
and to
determine the effect of
relationship marketing practices on customer retention among the insurance companies in
Kenya.
The study employed a descriptive survey as its research design.
A
combination of
various
techniques of data analysis to determine an overall picture of the variables in the
population using SPSS
was used
.
From the findings,
most of
the relationship marketing
practices presented to the respondents were, to a moderate extent, perceived to have
an
effect on customer retention. Those practices that were found to be perceived as having
the greatest effect include:
d
esigning and implementing programs to efficiently and
effectively allocate the appropriate resources to each customer
;
ensuring adheren
ce to
laws and regulations governing the conduct of business and maintaining high ethical
standards
;
entering into one
-
to
-
one communication with a customer and
undertaking
customer data
-
mining to identify important customer
s who warrant special attention.
The
study concludes that the insurance companies have adopted customer satisfaction
practices to a large extent
.
The study recommends improvement
in use of technology
related relationship marketing practices
.
This study
is significant in
help
ing
life insur
ance
companies to understand how best to implement the relationship marketing strategies. It
is also of importance to
the Insurance Regulatory Authorities to understand the
effect of
relationship marketing practices on customer retention among the insuranc
e companies in
Kenya
.
The study also recommended that studies on other dimensions of relationship
marketing be carried out in the insurance companies in Kenya. For instance one might be
interested in investigating the relationship marketing strategies and
challenges of
implementing such strategies among the insurance companies