THE EFFECT OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM STAR RATED HOTELS IN AMHARA REGION, ETHIOPIA

As far as customers are the means of the existence of business organizations, customer relationship management is the exclusive weapon to win customers confidence and keep sustainable competitive advantage. CRM implementation in the hotel industry is an ongoing phenomenon as long as there is tough competition in the industry. The main objective of this research was to examine the influence of CRM on customer satisfaction. The research was focused on three and above three star rated hotels in Amhara Region, Ethiopia. The basic drive force of the researcher in this particular area was that the region has tremendous tourism destination in which hospitality business accompaniments required. Therefore, CRM issue and customer satisfaction in the hotel industry was an agenda for the researcher. Self-administered questionnaire in the form of 5 point Likert scale was the primary data collection instrument. 260 Hotel guests who stayed in the hotel, at least one night and more, during data collection had been selected at check-in time via stratified random sampling. Pearson correlation coefficient, ANOVA and multiple regression model were the inferential part of data analysis. SPSS version 23 was applied for data entry and presentation. All measures of CRM (people, technology, process and strategy) had positive relationship to customer satisfaction. People and strategy measures had positive and statistically significant contribution to customer satisfaction whereas technology and process measures had negative but statistically insignificant