Abstract:
Customer relationship management has been broadly thwarted as the panacea to
improving supplier-customer relationship in literature. However, business-to-business
relationships are often characterized by deeply complex relationships in the supply chain.
This
research
therefore
evaluates
the
customer
relationship
management
practices/initiatives employed by Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited (GGBL) as a
supplier to manage its relationships with trade partners in the supply chain. It sorts to
assess the behavior of CRM practices on customer satisfaction in a business-to-business
setting. The variables on CRM practices (trust, communication, order handling, conflict
handling, socials bonds, commitment) and customer satisfaction variables (happy) were
coded using a scale (1-5), where 5=strongly agree and 1= strongly disagree.
Data was collected using questionnaires from 254 Retailers and 35 Key Distributors who
are commercial trade partners of Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited. Reliability test and
multiple regression analysis were carried out using Statistical Package for Social Sciences
(SPSS). The study found that the six CRM constructs cumulatively had significant
positive effect on customer satisfaction. The study also revealed that key distributors are
more satisfied than retailers. Individually, order handling, trust and communication,
commitment, and complaint handling were found to be significant drivers of customer
satisfaction. The study strongly recommends CRM adoption as a strategy to ensuring
customer satisfaction in the business-to-business environments. In B2B relationships such
as GGBL, the tendency to form closer ties with Key distributors is often high to the
neglect of the retailers who actually interface with consumers. The study also recommends
that, CRM be applied to the whole supply chain if the needed benefits are to be realized.
