Relationship Marketing Practices and Customer Satisfaction in the Ghanaian Banking Sector
In recent times, Ghanaian banking environment has been keenly competitive and therefore requires the banks to be more adept in their strategic approach to meet the growing demands of customers. Effective management of customer relationships is believed to be key in the approach of wining and maintaining customers. The objective of the study is to examine the impact of relationship marketing practices on customer satisfaction in the Ghanaian banking sector. In order to achieve the objective of the study, data was collected using questionnaires from 250 customers of universal banks in Ghana. Reliability test and multiple regression analysis were carried out using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) The main findings of the study show that relationship marketing practices have a significant effect on relationship quality and customer satisfaction. The study also reveals that relationship quality has a significant effect on customer satisfaction. The results disclose that trust, reciprocity, commitment, competence, shared value and communication were the key determinants of relationship quality. The findings also show that relationship quality, trust, competence, shared value and communication were important in determining and influencing customer satisfaction. The findings suggest that banks which desire to have a good quality relationship with customers should insist that their managers and staff act trustworthily, competently, show strong commitment to service, communicate efficiently and reliably, pay much attention to shared values, and improve reciprocal abilities of the employees. The findings also suggest that banks can create customer satisfaction by exhibiting trustworthy behaviour, communicating information to customers efficiently and accurately, delivering services competently, pay much attention to shared values, and improving overall customer relationship quality. Keywords: Relationship marketing, Customer satisfaction, Banking industry, Ghana