The impact of brand image on customer satisfaction in major supermarkets in Nairobi County

Abstract

n a competitive business environment, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty is emerging as an issue for which the business firms are very sensitive of. As a result, the process of building a reputed brand image and attracting new customers remains an important task for the marketing managers in any organization. Most of the business organizations consider a brand image as a powerful asset for their success. A trusted and recognized brand identity provides confidence for customers to use the products offered by that brand. Therefore, the successful organizations always work hard to build strong brand and represent it in a consistent and clear way. Indeed, organizational success is a direct consequence of brand image and which is measured as a significant feature of current marketing strategy. The objective of the study was to establish the impact of brand image on customer satisfaction in major supermarkets in Kenya. The research design was descriptive survey of the large supermarkets operating in Nairobi. The population of the study was 15 large supermarkets operating in Nairobi. The study adopted convenience sampling technique in which the respondents were picked from the exit corner of the store according to their availability and interest. The study used primary data that were collected through selfadministered questionnaires. The data was analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics. The regression analysis was used to assess the effects of brand image and customer satisfaction. The study found out that the supermarkets brand image was dependable for use, enhances perceptions that customers have a desirable lifestyle, effective to customer needs than other brands, provides solution to customers expectations, increases customers frequency of visit, performs as it promises, makes a good impression of customers on other people, helps customers better fit into their social group and improves the way customers are perceived by others. The study established that customers were satisfied with the reasonable prices, location, availability of products, provision of timely and accurate information to customers, product availability, fresh products, loyalty programs, layout, product quality and shorter time to cash registers. The regression analysis between overall brand image and overall customer satisfaction was 0.880, which is also highly positive and significant at the 0.01 level. This indicates that brand image and customer satisfaction has significant positive relationships. The study concluded that customer satisfaction is important in maintaining customers, particularly those in service industry. For customer satisfaction, supermarkets should understand customer-specific needs, provide good quality products, and have the capacity to address customer complaints or problems in a friendly manner. It further recommended that it is important for supermarkets to measure customers' satisfaction in order to analyze their product or service image performance and whether their satisfied customers are willing to recommend their branded product to others as well as having the intention to purchase their product/services in the future.