Business Research Methodology (BRM 681) FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER RETENTION TOWARD ROOM SERVICE: A STUDY OF PRIMULA BEACH RESORT, KUALA TERENGGANU 1.0 INTRODUCTION In managing the business which provides pure services to the customer, company need to ensure that the service delivered is meeting with expectation and satisfied the customer. The quality of services is considered to be a critical success factor for the service companies. Service is close conceptual as well as empirical link to customer satisfaction turned it into the core marketing instrument, making it the most researched area in services marketing (Fisk et al., 1995; Bolton et al., 2000). In addition, the accumulated research has linked positively the service with profitability (Fornell, 1992). It is very important to retain the customer. But, nowadays, the service provider needs to identify other factors that lead to customer retention rather than provide a quality service. On this study, researcher has chosen Primula Beach Resort as a base company to do research on factors that influencing customer retention, and downsize the study into room services. According to the current situation, there are some factors recognized which have influence to the customer Page | 1
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Hypothesis (H) is an unproven statement or proposition about a factor or phenomenon
that is of interest to the researcher. It may, for example, be a tentative statement about
relationships between two or more variables as stipulated by the theoretical framework or the
analytical model (Naresh K. Malhotra, Marketing Research, an Applied Orientation, page 53,).
Researcher has come out with several hypotheses regarding this research. The
hypotheses are as follows:
Hypothesis 1: Customer Satisfaction
H0: There is no relationship between customer satisfaction and customer retention.
H1: There is a relationship between customer satisfaction and customer retention.
Hypothesis 2: Customer Trust
H0: There is no relationship between customer trust and customer retention.
H1: There is a relationship between customer trust and customer retention.
Hypothesis 3: Product Value
H0: There is no relationship between product value and customer retention.
HI: There is a relationship between product value and customer retention.
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3.0 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
3.1 INTRODUCTION – RESEARCH DESIGN
This research attempts to analyze the relationship between the dependent and
independent variables. Research design can be defined as framework or blueprint for obtaining
the information needed to solve marketing research problem or research question. It specifies
the detail of the procedures necessary for obtaining the information needed to structure and
solve marketing research problem. This study is conclusive research where the objective is to
get the conclusion from the research. It is also meant to test specific hypothesis and examine
relationships between variables and to assist the decision maker in determining, evaluating, and
selecting the best course of action to take in a given situation. Researcher examines whether or
not the conjectured relationship can be substantiated and then bring the answers. The findings
and results of a conclusive research are conclusive and are used as input in decision making.
The type of conclusive research in the study is descriptive.
This research is a quantitative research where sources of information are gathered from
questionnaire distributed to the customers who spend a night in room at Primula Beach Resort.
Most of others information and data gathered from published journals, articles and books. The
researcher used convenience sampling which is non probability sampling to get the data from
the respondent. The researcher used this type of sampling because it is easy to obtain a large
number of completed questionnaires quickly, low cost, and least time consuming of all sampling
technique. The sampling unit is accessible, easy to measure, and also cooperative.
For this study, a researcher used 5 Likert scales, which originated by Rensis Likert. It is
a measurement scale with five response categories ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly
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agree’, which require the respondents to indicate a degree of agreement or disagreement with
each of a series of statement related to the stimulus object.
Correlation study is adopted to delineate the important variables associated with the
subject matter, customer retention. It may be of interest to know that attempts are sometimes
made to establish cause-and-effect relationship through regression analysis. The collected data
will be analyzed and interpreted by using the computer software, which is known as Statistical
Package for Social Science (SPSS), Version 12.0. From the (SPSS) program, the computer
can provide the standard error, coefficient value-stat, R-squared, Pearson Correlation and
several other important statistical tests. After the data was computed, it was analyzed to find
the relationship between the dependent variable and each of the independent variables. It is
used to test and answer the hypothesis constructed. The clear understanding of research
problem enable researcher to identify the management problem and then start defining the
objectives of the research. After defining objectives, researcher will collect the data, normally
from primary data which is available to help with this study.
3.2 POPULATION
Population refers to the entire group of people, events, or things of interest that
the researcher wishes to investigate (Sekaran, 2000). Other definition by Naresh K. Malhotra,
Marketing Research, an Applied Orientation, page 328, population refers to the aggregate of all
elements, sharing some common set of characteristics, comprising the universe for the purpose
of the marketing research problem. On this research, the target unit is the customer that stays at
the room in Primula Beach Resort. As mentioned earlier, the customer in Primula Beach Resort
can be divided into two separated group which consist of individual and family group and
second, government and private group. These groups come to get the room in Primula Beach
Resort in various purposes such as for vacation, traveling, holiday with family or friend, function,
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meeting, and many more purpose. But for this study, researcher will narrow the target
population only to individual and family group. This is due to some factor such as the perception
of this group is different compare to other group, the purpose of staying, and their needs and
wants during the stay.
3.3 SAMPLING
In statistics, a sample is a subset of a population. Typically, the population is very large,
making a census or a complete enumeration of all the values in the population impractical or
impossible. The sample represents a subset of manageable size. Samples are collected and
statistics are calculated from the samples so that one can make inferences or extrapolations
from the sample to the population. This process of collecting information from a sample is
referred to as sampling.
In this research, a non probability sampling is chosen. The researcher used convenience
sampling method. Convenience sampling technique is to attempts to obtain a sample of
convenient elements. The selection of sampling units is left primarily to the interviewer. Often,
respondents are selected because they happen to be in the right place at the right time.
Convenience sampling is the least expensive and least time consuming of all sampling
techniques. The sampling units are accessible, easy to measure and cooperative. The
researcher does convenience sampling where manage to get sample from customer from
government and corporate firms. The researcher manages to get 160 respondents for the
research.
3.3.1 Target Population
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The specific, complete group relevant to the research project is the best definition of
target population. The population for this research is the individual and family group of customer
of Primula Beach Resort who come for many purpose. This population comes to the hotel for
example to stay a night in room, for event or function, meeting, for food and beverage, swim at
pool, gymnasium and so on. The hotel received 24,000 until 26,000 customers per year. It was
many potential customers who will come back to the hotel for that year.
3.3.2 Sampling Frame
Malhotra, N. K, (2003), page 189, defines the sampling frame as a representation of the
elements of the target population. It consists of a list or a set of directions for identifying the
target population. For this research, the researcher has selected the sampling frame that will be
those customers of individual and family group that come to the Primula Beach Resort and stay
at room, regardless of their gender, age, and income level, purpose of trip, marital status, and
race. The researcher has chose 160 customers from individual and family group that stay at
room in Primula Beach Resort as the sampling frame.
3.3.3 Sample Size
According to Naresh K. Malhotra, Marketing Research, an Applied Orientation, Page
332, sampling size refers to the number of elements to be included in a study. A sample is a
subset of the population. It comprises some members selected from it. According to Sekaran
(2003), sample size is the actual numbers of subjects chosen as a sample to represent the
population characteristics. Researcher takes 160 respondents as a sample size. Roscoe (1975)
stated that sample size which is larger than 30 and less than 500 is appropriate for most
research; where samples are to be broken into sub-samples, a minimum sample size of 30 for
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each category is necessary. Therefore, 160 samples are appropriate to analyze the data in this
study. A total of 160 questionnaires will distribute to potential respondents according to this
condition; the respondents had to be the individual and family group customers of the hotel.
3.4 DATA COLLECTION METHOD
Commonly, data collection method used by researcher in completing study is collected
from two (2) sources that are primary data and secondary data. Primary data can be defined as
the data collected or produced by the researcher specifically to address the research problem.
On the other hand, secondary data refers to the data collected for some purpose other than the
problem at hand (Malhotra N.K, Marketing Research, an Applied Orientation, Page 40).
On this study, researcher used primary data. Primary data is the data gathered and
assembled specifically for the research project at hand. It was difficult to construct and more
costly than secondary data. The researchers also faced another problem such as not enough
time and waste energy too. For this research, researcher has distributed a set of questionnaire
to the respondent to get the primary data.
3.4.1 Measurement and Scales
In the research, researcher used Likert scale to measure the attitude. The Likert Scale
is an extremely, and most popular means for measuring attitudes. With the Likert scale,
respondents indicate their own attitudes by checking how strongly they agree or disagree with
carefully constructed statements about the attitudinal object. Individuals generally choose from
approximately five response alternatives: “strongly agree,” “agree,” “neutral,” “disagree,” and
“strongly disagree.”
Typically, each scales item has five responses categories, ranging from “strongly agree”
to “strongly disagree”. Strong agreement indicates the most favorable attitudes on the
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statement, and the weight of 5 is assigned to this response. If a negative statement toward the
object were given, the weights would be reversed and “strongly disagree” would be assigned
the weight of 1. The total score is the summation of the weight assigned to an individual’s total
responses. Likert scales provide some advantages such as it is easy to construct and
administer and respondent readily understand how to use the scale.
In the Likert procedure, a large number of statements are generated and then an item
analysis is performed. The purpose of the item analysis is to ensure that final items evoke a
wide response and discriminate among those with positive and negative attitudes. Items that
are poor because they lack clarify or elicit mixed response patterns are eliminated from the final
statement list. This step in the questionnaire design is too often neglected by business
researchers.
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3.5 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
After get all the information through the questionnaires that distributed, researcher will
use Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 12.0 software in the next step to get
the result. The data gathered through this analysis are illustrated in from of table; graft and
charts for easy obtain count of the number of respondent associated with values of the variables
and to express in percentage term. Then, the data analysis will be conducted to find out the
result whether the hypotheses are significant or not. Researcher will conduct a descriptive
analysis which is the transformation of raw data into a form that will make them easy to
understand and interpret. Tabulation is the orderly arrangement of data in a table or other
summary format.
Researcher used SPSS software as the tool to process the data. Then, several
statistical tests were conducted for analysis such as frequency analysis, factor analysis,
reliability test, regression test, correlation and so on. Further, the table, chart and graph will be
developed. Then each one will be interpret to make it more understandable. Next, compute the
mean, median and mode of the responses. Mean is the average, median is the central item in a
group arrayed in ascending or descending while mode is the most frequently occurring
phenomenon within a set of observations.
Finally, researcher will conclude the result and make conclusion and some
recommendation from the study. The information based from the research would help the
management of Primula Beach Resort to manage their customer very well and finally, get
customer retention.
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