The Effectiveness of Relationship Marketing Strategies in Driving a Competitive Advantage: A Case of Zimbabwean Banking Sector

Abstract

Relationship Management dimensions are business strategies designed to assist the organization to maintain a competitive advantage, reduce costs and increase profitability by solidifying customer loyalty. With intense competition among commercial banking sector, this research study sought to analyze the effectiveness of relationship marketing strategies in maintaining a competitive advantage in Zimbabwe. The secondary objectives of this study was to investigate the different relationship marketing strategies that can be used in the commercial banking sector, evaluate why relationship marketing is important in the commercial banking sector and find out challenges faced by the commercial banking sector in successfully implementing relationship marketing. The research study adopted a mixed research strategy, a cross-sectional survey research design because it accorded the researcher an opportunity to capture data from respondents at a point in time and showed significant associations among variables. The targeted population was 50 employees from commercial banks. Questionnaires were circulated to 30 employees of commercial banks in Chegutu through a convenience sampling method. Based on the analysis of the responses received through these questionnaires, it emerged that commercial banks in Chegutu, Zimbabwe attach many meanings to the concept of relationship marketing. The majority of bank officials in Chegutu associate relationship marketing with forming long-term relationships with customers. Moreover Commercial banks consider relationship marketing as a programme that creates unnecessary expense in their operations. Relationship marketing is seen as something that has no quantifiable benefits to the banking organization. The findings also showed that the employees of the commercial banks were customer oriented, handled the customers well and served them at the promised time. The study concluded that CRM is an important aspect in achieving competitive advantage in the banking industry. The study recommends that the government and the commercial banking management should ensure that the commercial banks are upgraded with modern technological facilities, standardization of the training curriculum for service providers in the commercial banking industry and come up with well - defined customer loyalty programs for them to gain competitive advantage. The study proposes that future research should be extended to financial, other banks which are not commercial and insurance institutions whose relationship marketing issues closely relate to those of the commercial banking industry.