EFFECT OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT ON CUSTOMER RETENTION AND LOYALTY IN THE NIGERIAN MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY

The study was conducted to assess the effect of customer relations management as an independent variable on customer retention and customer loyalty as the dependent variables, in the Nigerian mobile telecommunications industry. The study was motivated by t he problem of incessant customer complaints and exponential level switching back and forth between service providers by many customers. The study covered MTN, GLO, Airtel and 9Mobile because they are the four major mobile telecommunication companies operat ing in Nigeria. The study was restricted to the federal capital territory Abuja for its national centrality, administrative nature and housing of head or regional offices of the sampled companies. The study adopted a survey design and made use of primary d ata that was collected using a five-point Likert scale structured questionnaire. The population of the study was all telecoms’ customers in Abuja from which a sample size of 400 was determined using the Yamane (1973) formula. Ordinal regression technique was used to analyse the data and test the formulated hypotheses. The study found that customer relationship management has a positive and significant effect on customer retention, but a positive and insignificant effect on customer loyalty. The study therefore recommended that CRM practices on customer retention should be continued, while CRM practices on customer loyalty should be improved upon.