Direct selling strategies and customers loyalty in the Nigerian deposit money banks

Abstract

--Direct Selling has become a veritable part of business success story particularly in the deposit money bank of Nigeria. The main objective of this study is to examine the effect of direct selling strategies on customers loyalty in the Nigerian deposit money banks. Primary data was used for the study. The data were collected through a structured questionnaire. The study adopted the cross-sectional survey research design method. The population of the study was 812 employees from selected deposit money banks (Zenith Bank, GTBank, UBA, First Bank and Fidelity Bank) in Delta State. A total number of 260 respondents were selected as the sample size. To validate the instrument, face and content validity were adopted. To verify the reliability of the research constructs, the internal consistency analysis and item-to-total correlation was applied to identify the internal consistency reliability of the constructs. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the responses of the respondent background profile and also to reveal the pattern of responses from each of the constructs in the sub-scale. Multiple regression analysis was adopted to analyze the effect of the variables of direct selling strategies on customers loyalty. Findings from the study showed that face-to-face communication (β = 0.185. p<0.01) and sales team cohesion (β=0.196, p<0.01), exhibited a significant positive effect on customers loyalty. The study concluded that direct selling strategies have a positive effect on customers loyalty in the Nigeria deposit money banks. Keywords---direct selling strategies, face-to-face communication, team cohesion, customers loyalty, deposit money bank.