CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MARKETING AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN THE NIGERIAN BANKING INDUSTRY
Marketing in the banking industry has witnessed a paradigm shift in orientations from transaction marketing to relationship marketing. Today, banks are working in extremely competitive and rapidly dynamic work environment which has necessitated the focus on responding to customers’ needs satisfactorily. This study examined the effect of customer relationship marketing on customer satisfaction of the Nigerian banking industry, with reference to First Bank of Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design and a well organized structured 5 Point likert scale questionnaire was distributed among two hundred (200) selected customers of First Bank of Nigeria using accidental sampling technique. The result of the study using regression analysis show that customer relationship marketing has significant effect on customer satisfaction since 84.6% of variance recorded in customer satisfaction is traceable to the practice of customer relationship marketing (R2 = 0.846, p < 0.05).The study also discovered that trust, commitment and communication have positive effects on customer satisfaction. Based on these findings, the study therefore recommended that there is a need for banks to develop a good customer relationship with their customers by periodically training employees on building enduring customer relationship.