The study explores the effects of customer complaint resolution strategies on customer satisfaction with particular emphasis on the specific objectives namely; a distributive complaint resolution strategy, interactive complaint resolution strategies and procedural complaint resolution strategies. The banking industry is one of the world’s biggest and oldest industries in the world. Its stability and growth is therefore paramount to economic performance of individual countries including Kenya. However, with the increasing competition banks have had to refocus on various strategies aimed at maintaining a stable and profitable customer base. Maintaining a loyal customer base has seen banks invest in various marketing strategies among them complaint resolution strategies so as to have an ever satisfied clientele. The study used an explanatory survey that targeted all the 20 banks based in Eldoret operating and licensed by Central Bank of Kenya as at June 2018. Additionally, 2300 customers were targeted for the study. A sample size of 372 customers was selected using systematic sampling techniques but out of this, 341 customer questionnaires were filled and returned. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect primary data. With the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS),reliability tests was carried out using Cronbach alpha coefficient (a). Exploratory factor analysis was used to validate and test the indicators of the preconceived complaints resolution variables. Pearson correlation analysis was performed to test the relationship between the study variables. The study utilized multiple regression analysis to test the hypothesis, the study indicated that distributive complaint resolution strategies were significant (p<0.05) and accounted for 17.7% of customer satisfaction, procedural justice factors were significant (p<0.05) and accounted for 43.5% of customer satisfaction. Further interactive complaint resolution strategies were also found to be significant (p<0.05) and explained 36.35 % of customer satisfaction. The study established a significant (p<0.05) thus supported distributive complaint resolution strategies, interactive complaint resolution strategies and procedural justice factors to be significant associated to customer satisfaction. The study concluded that customer complaints resolution strategies are important mechanism in establishing customer satisfaction levels and therefore banks are advised to invest in customer complaints resolution strategies. Finally studies should be carried out to establish the relevance of accessibility related strategies on customer satisfaction in other industries and study areas.
Keywords: Customer Satisfaction, customer complaints resolution strategies, distributive strategies, interactive strategies, procedural strategies
