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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
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 retention. There are customer satisfaction, customer trust, and product value.
Currently, Primula Beach on their way for maintaining and retaining their present and
existing customer. For information, overall income of Primula Beach Resort comes from the
government and private function, while the rest from other customer. The problem or issue was
come out after much consideration regarding the current situation face by Primula Beach
Resort. As we know, the external factors such as economic condition of our country give an
impact to hotel industry. In addition, there are some other factors such as instability political
situation, many competitors, and so on. As companies that provide service as main output to
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Primula Beach Resort plan offering comfortable yet elegant accommodation and quality
service, this fully equipped and also provides state of the art business and convention facilities.
So that, they can build a stronger and meaningful relationship with their current and target
customers.
The sole purpose of a business Peter Drucker once famously claimed was “to create a
customer”. However, keeping the customer has become regarded as equally, if not more
important since Dawkins and Reinchheld (1990) reported that 5 per cent increase in customer
retention generated an increase in customer net value of between 25 per cent and 95 per cent
across a wide range of business environment. It is so important to keeping the customer other
than getting the customer. Since there are many competitors around this area, Primula Beach
Resort really need to concern on how to retain their customer in order to avoid switching from
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The title of the study is “Factors Influencing Consumer Retention toward Room Service:
A Study of Primula Beach Resort Terengganu”. This study is done to Primula Beach Resort,
focuses on the searching and identifying the potential factors that influencing consumer
retention toward room in this hotel. As noted before, it is very important for the company to
keeping the customers other than getting them. The main issue here is to find which factors is
most contributed to this problem, and at the same time try to find any possible solution that
could be used to solve it. Beside that, this result of research can be useful information to the
hotel itself and the management team to help them in improving on how they retain their existing
customer. Furthermore, it’s also could be a useful information for the management team to get
some view about their customers and take some action in order to manage their customer
feeling and indirectly can reduce the problem such as customer complaints.
This topic has been chosen because there are many other competitors around the area
in Kuala Terengganu, which struggling to compete with each other into same target market. It
included competitors such as Felda Hotel, Grand Continental Kuala Terengganu Hotel, Midtown
Hotel, Seri Malaysia Hotel and so on. As mention earlier, Primula Beach Resort has faced a
problem to dealing with current situation. Instability of economic and political situation has given
a huge impact to this hotel. Added with a rapid growing of competitor around Kuala Terengganu
area, it was quite difficult for them to achieve maximum profitability. Furthermore, Primula Beach
Resort is the hotel which offers the highest room rate than other hotel in Kuala Terengganu. For
that, they really need to know the factors and on how to retain their existing customers in order
On this study, researcher has chosen retention as main concern. Customer retention is
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company on an ongoing basis. Retaining existing customer also costs less than acquire new
ones. The company knows their customer and what they want, and the initial costs of attracting
the customers have already been expanded (Davidow and Uttal, 1989). Old customers also pay
less attention to competing brand and advertising, less price sensitive, and create positive word
of mouth communication (Desai and Mahajan, 1998). Customer retention also brings benefit
such as retention and satisfaction, better service, and lower cost, lower price sensitivity, positive
word of mouth, higher market share, higher efficiency, and higher productivity (Reichheld,
1995). In addition, to support the retention, researcher has identified three variables that have
influence on customer retention toward room services in Primula Beach Resort Terengganu,
First, customer satisfaction, which considered one of the most important competitive
factors for the future and one of the best indicators of a firm’s future profits. Some
consequences of customer satisfaction are: improvement of the firm’s reputation and image;
reduction of marketing costs and, vice versa, lower transaction costs; reduction of costs related
to product/service failures; and, lastly, increased satisfaction among personnel and greater
stability of the workforce. Furthermore, customer satisfaction also creates very strong switching
barriers, thus lead to customer retention. Researcher will evaluate the degree of satisfaction of
Researcher has chose customer trust as second variable. Customers would probably be
reluctant to commit to a service relationship (retention) unless they have confidence in the
service provider’s ability to constantly meet their expectations in the future (reliability) and in its
willingness to avoid any behavior that could be detrimental to them. Trust should also have a
direct effect on consumer resistance to switch to another service provider when a critical
incident occurs. Trust implies uncertainty and vulnerability, and as such, is critical when services
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are intangible, difficult to evaluate, complex and technical for instant the products, staff, and so
Third variable used is the product value. A product’s (or brand’s) meaning is the
consumer’s perception or interpretation of it, as well as his/her affective reactions toward it. That
is, products mean very little in and of themselves, apart from the meanings described to them by
consumers. These meanings affect consumers, perceptions of value and purchase behaviors.
In pinpointing product meanings, marketers are challenged by the multitude of meanings that
each product can represent. Meanings may be objective or symbolic, shared or personal or
evoke a high or low emotional response. The meanings of valued possessions also are derived
from enjoyment, interpersonal ties, and a sense of identity, financial issues, and objects’
appearance. Moreover, consumers do not simply purchase and consume products at face
Researcher then measures those three variables (customer satisfaction, customer trust,
and product value) that stated above, to see whether has significant influence with retention.
When the study is complete, this valuable information can be use by the hotel for them to
improve their service, increase the room rate sales volume, and to be a leader in hotel industry
in Kuala Terengganu.
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The purpose of this study is to determine the possible factors that influencing customer
retention toward room service in Primula Beach Resort. This study also will determine the
relationship between customer satisfactions, customer trust and product value towards
customer retention. Research is done to investigate the problems that arise in Primula Beach
Resort regarding how the hotel retains their customer. Retaining customer will reduce the
customer complaints at the same time. The types of complaints that usually arise regarding
room services is the cleanliness of the room, staff attitude toward customers, not enough
When the study is complete, this valuable information can be use by the hotel for them
to improve their service, increase the room rate sales volume, and to be a leader in hotel
-To identify the possible factors that influencing customer retention toward room
Orientation, page 35, the word “problem statement” is define as a broad statement of the
general marketing research problem and identification of its specific component. According to
Sekaran (2003), problem statement means a clear, precise and succinct statement of the
questions or issues that is to be investigated with the goal of finding an answer or solution. The
independent variables that have been included in this study are customer satisfaction, customer
trust and product value. Even though Primula Beach Resort is the famous hotel in Kuala
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Terengganu, they cannot avoid a problem in maintaining the existing customers. The major
problem here is because of the other competitors. The number of hotels in Kuala Terengganu
increase year by year. One of the greatest challenges facing hotel organization today is the ever
This issue has been choosing because considering of some factor such as there are
many competitors in hotel service around the area of Kuala Terengganu, the current situation of
our economic condition which give a big impact to the hotel industry, and so on. Those factors
give impact to Primula Beach Resort and they need to find a way on how to retain their existing
customer rather than getting new. As usual the main purpose of customer getting service at
hotel is to spend a night with pleasure and comfortable room beside other purposes. So that,
the important issue here is more to the room, added with the services they get while stay. There
are several potential factors that can influence consumer retention toward room services in
Primula Beach Resort. The major factor that have been identify is the customer satisfaction by
the customers, the degree of trust by the consumer, and the perceive value of product to them.
In the area of technology edge, most organizations are seeking the right way to built and
maintain long term relationship with their customers. So the organizations need to retain their
existing customer. Everyday managers must face the challenge of establishing and maintaining
positive customer relationships. The task is increasingly difficult as consumers have greater
access to information and a wide array of choices. Price-cutting and intense promotional
campaigns make the task even more complex (Edwin, 2006). Furthermore, the current situation
that arise nowadays like the increase of cost, low buying power, unstable political condition and
so on, give a huge impact for the hotelling industries in Malaysia. So in order to reduce the cost,
customer retention management is the right method because it required little sales and
advertising expenses. In other word the hotel will getting high profit. From the above statement,
the problem is to determine the factors that may have possible influence of trust, service quality
staff performance on customer retention in order to continuous choosing the room services in
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Primula Beach Resort. Meanwhile, it will help the hotel management to maintain the customer
satisfaction, increased service quality by excellent service performance by staff and increased
customer trust.
The principle objective or aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between
the dimensions of trust, switching barriers, customer satisfaction and customer retention toward
Practical Significant
- Can measure how to retain customers toward this hotel in term of room service.
- Therefore can identified and improve their quality of the service that they provided
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- Provide the input of the three (3) variables which include customer satisfaction,
customer trust, and product value to the hotel in industry in order to have customer
retention
Theoretical Significant
- Provide the new outcome is solving problem that has never done by other researcher
before.
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For the preparation of literature review, the researcher will study through the journals,
article, books, magazines, internet and newspaper. Below are some literature review chosen to
repurchase intentions, with the first four being emotional-cognitive retention construct, and the
Customer retention is very important for the hotel in order to ensure their sustainability
and growth for a long of time; therefore, it is the hotel’s duty to ensure that they had been able
to fulfill all the customer’s needs and wants from time to time. Whenever there is crises arise,
they need to be alert with the current situation and be able to respond it quickly.
We need to ensure that enable individual customer to be as satisfy as they can be. If we
are serious about helping customers succeed, retention is a necessary but not sufficient
component to their satisfaction. In fact, retention should be our minimal expectation for
customer success that they simply return to our hotel after their first year (T. Kahrig, Personal
customer. Customer retention is the mirror image of customer defection. According to Chatura,
2003 the definition of customer retention is the propensity of the customer to stay with their
service provider. Many organization today having difficulty to attack new customer so the
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restructure their marketing department and appoint managers to give attention to their existing
again the point that loyal customers who keep coming back are the most profitable type of
customer. They tend to spend more and they may even act as our ambassadors through
positive word of mouth. Obviously these satisfied customers involve very little sales and
marketing expense and thus their true profitability at the margin can be very high (Chistopher,
2003).
Retention was believed to be enhanced in the same way as satisfaction, with the
exception of service. Instead, the informants experienced introduction of changes and chemistry
to enhance retention. The strongest connections between satisfaction and retention turned out
to pertain to the experiences of relationship and confidence, and frequent contact accompanied
by open dialogue. Complaint handling was also strongly connected to both concepts. The
question as to whether a retained customer is necessarily satisfied elicited three responses: the
customer is satisfied, the customer is not necessarily satisfied, and it depends on how
Customer retention implies a long term commitment on the part of the customer and the
hotel to maintain the relationship. The development of mutual commitment is the same process
Our most relevant finding may be that the informant experienced and expressed the
concept of satisfaction and retention using many different mental models. Managers should be
concerned when employee understanding of key concepts differs within the organization, and
differs also from management’s understanding. When employees perceive the concepts in
different ways they value them differently, which could result in diminishing service quality,
dissatisfied customers and lower profitability. It is not enough for managers to define the
concepts and establish goals for the employees, or even to evaluate the goals, nor is it enough
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for managers to guide employees on how to satisfy and retain the customers. They also need to
product or service in relation to his or her expectations” (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004)
of an emotion, reflecting the degree to which the customer believes the service provider evokes
positive feelings. Numerous studies in the service sector have hypothesized and empirically
validated the link between satisfaction and behavioral intentions and behaviors such as
customer retention and word of mouth (e.g. Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Rucci et al., 1998;
Bansal and Taylor, 1999; Cronin et al., 2000). Indeed, this link is fundamental to the marketing
concept, which holds that satisfying customer needs and wants is the key to repeat purchase
(Kotler et al., 2002). Further, the importance of satisfaction on retention is so well recognized
that some major economies now measure satisfaction at the industry level using large sample
surveys to predict customer retention and future financial performance (Fornell, 1992; Fornell et
al., 1995).
from comparing a product’s perceived performance (or outcome) in relation to his or her
expectations. If the performance falls short of expectations, the customer is dissatisfied. If the
performance matches the expectation, the customer is satisfied. If the performance exceeds
expectations, the customer is highly satisfied or delighted (Kotler, 2006). In simple term,
satisfaction can be thought as the extent to which a product’s perceived performance matches a
buyer expectation. If the product’s performance falls short of expectation, the buyer is
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delighted.
producers offered products or services to their customers. This is because by giving the superb
or high quality products or services to their customers it can be considered as one of their core
competencies compare than their competitors and at the same time they can retain their
customers and attract new prospects. Satisfaction is an extremely difficult concept to define in a
to seek to manage and increase customer satisfaction because the more satisfied customers
The connection between retention and satisfaction was experienced in many different
ways. Only one informant believed that a retained customer is necessarily satisfied. Ovenden
(1995), who argues that in order to retain a customer, it is necessary to satisfy him, supports
this. Desai and Mahajan (1998), also assume that retained customers are, in fact, satisfied, and
not retained simply because of habit, indifference or inertia. Johnston (2001), on the other hand,
finds a weak relationship between satisfaction and retention, in line with most informants’
experience. Eriksson and Löfmarck Vaghult (2000), argue that not all retained customers are
satisfied, saying they may not have achieved the kind of relationship in which they can be
Researches conduct by Jones and Sasser Jr. (1995), found that where customers have
choices the link between satisfaction and loyalty is linear; as satisfaction rises, so too does
loyalty. In this case, the higher the student satisfaction, the higher the student retention.
However, in markets where competition was intense they found a different between the loyalty
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Customer satisfaction has long been regarded as a proxy for a firm’s success on the
assumption that it is inextricably linked to customer loyalty and retention (Paul G. Patterson,
2004). According to Kotler et al., (2002), satisfying customer needs and wants is the key to
repeat purchase.
major economies now measure satisfaction at the industry level using large sample surveys to
predict customer retention and future financial performance (Fornell, 1992; Fornell, et al. 1995).
The researcher has conceptualized trust based on Morgan and Hunt’s, (1994),
relationship marketing. They conceptualized trust as existing when one party has confidence in
a partner’s reliability and integrity. Indeed, trust could exist at the individual level (Rotter, 1967)
or at the firm level (Moorman et al., 1993). Furthermore, trust, when conceptualized as a
dimension of service quality, could also be thought of as “trust in the service itself”
Recent research suggests that, in some cases, service providers may be unable to
retain even those customers who are satisfied (e.g. Heskett et al., 1994; Schneider and Bowen,
1999). Thus, satisfaction alone may not be adequate to ensure long-term customer commitment
to a single provider. Instead, it may be necessary to look beyond satisfaction to other variables
This view is consistent with research on marketing channels (e.g. Morgan and Hunt,
1994), which shows that firms often look beyond satisfaction to developing trust in order to
the premise that once trust is built into a relationship, the likelihood of either party ending the
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relationship decreases due to high termination costs. Although the consequences of trust in
business-to-business relationships have been firmly established, the same cannot be said about
Following the lead of Parasuraman et al. (1985, 1988), many have used trust as a
dimension of the service quality construct. Gremler and Brown (1996) proposed trust as a
conceptual antecedent of customer loyalty. Hart and Johnson (1999) offered anecdotal
evidence in support of a similar argument. Gwinner et al. (1998) suggested trust as a relational
benefit. More specifically, they proposed trust as a confidence benefit rated highly by customers
Tax et al. (1998), in their seminal paper on service recovery, studied trust in the context
data, they found trust, together with commitment (an indicator of future customer behavioral
McDougall’s (2000) recent findings, however, indicate that service recovery (similar to complaint
handling in Tax et al., 1998) could have a qualitatively different impact on trust from that on
satisfaction. These numerous uses of the trust construct in business to customer relationships
are likely to have at least partly contributed to the lack of an extensive body of literature on
However, Garbarino and Johnson (1999) did look at trust as a driver of customer
their relational (purchased season tickets covering a longer period of time) and transactional
orientation. They found that for relational customers, trust, as opposed to satisfaction, mediates
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According to the representative research projects higher levels of perceived value lead
to higher levels in satisfaction of customers, greater levels of customer loyalty and retention and
to a greater success of organizations (e.g. Cronin et al., 2000; Ulaga and Chacour, 2001).
The logical and basic rule, which applies to each individual in the role of a customer, is
that his basic motive of an exchange is satisfied by a product’s reasonable or expected value.
Delivering superior value to customers is considered one of the most popular concepts among
business managers and academia (Ulaga and Chacour, 2001). Moreover, many authors
suggested that the superior value should be considered as the most fundamental challenge for
marketing strategies of organizations (e.g. Deshpande et al., 1993; Jaworski and Kohli, 1993;
One reason for the keen attention placed on product quality is because of its critical
relevance for delivering superior consumer value. Superior consumer value is the cornerstone
of competitive advantage (Day and Wensley, 1994) and, as such, must be the focus of
knowledge acquisition. Thus it is essential for companies to develop process and system that
gender are often presumed to influence one’s level of product knowledge and shopping
experience in certain product categories, and are frequently used as the basis for market
segmentation (Calantone and Sawyer, 1978; Kotler, 1997; Uncles and Ehrenberg, 1990). Since
consumers of one particular demographic background may dominate the purchases in certain
categories, it may be reasonable to expect that consumer price knowledge in a given category
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Product value to a consumer is a comparison of tangible and intangible benefits from the
generic as well as the supplementary levels of a product and the total costs of production and
usage of a product (Nilson, 1992). Product value for a consumer is created when the benefits a
consumer gets with a product are greater than the long-term costs a consumer is expected to
(Kleine and Kernan, 1991), as well as his/her affective reactions toward it (Friedmann, 1986;
Szalay and Deese, 1978). That is, products mean very little in and of themselves, apart from the
value (Richins, 1994) and purchase behaviors (Kleine and Kernan, 1991). Therefore, “we
cannot hope to understand consumer behavior without first gaining some understanding of the
that each product can represent. Meanings may be objective or symbolic, shared or personal, or
The meanings of valued possessions also are derived from enjoyment, interpersonal
ties, and a sense of identity, financial issues, and objects’ appearance (Richins, 1994).
Moreover, consumers do not simply purchase and consume products at face value; they
long-term consumer behavior (Oliver, 1980; Yi, 1990). The more satisfied customers are, the
greater is their retention (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Fornell, 1992), the positive word of
mouth generated through them (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990; Schneider and Bowen, 1999),
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and the financial benefits to the firms who serve them (Fornell et al., 1995). It is no surprise,
therefore, that a fundamental aim of firms is to seek to manage and increase customer
satisfaction.
However, satisfaction alone does not ensure continued customer patronage (Jones and
Sasser, 1995). In particular, it offers a cautionary note on the role of satisfaction and trusts in
service failure and recovery incidents, and also unveils alternative means of retaining
customers.
Recent research shows that while satisfaction and trust are closely related, they are also
conceptually different, have some distinct antecedents, and also have different empirical effects
on retention (Geyskens et al., 1998; Szymanski and Henard, 2001). Further, some argue that
trust is a stronger emotion than satisfaction and that it may therefore better predict retention
(e.g. Hart and Johnson, 1999). By studying the effects of trust and satisfaction together,
researcher seek to shed more light on their relative importance as well as their interaction
effects on retention. Doing so can help firms make better decisions about the relative value of
When speaking about interrelations among the variables forming perceived value, there
has been a convergence of opinion that favorable service quality perceptions lead to improved
value attributions and higher levels of sacrifices lead to reduced value (Cronin et al., 2000). The
higher levels of perceived value lead to higher levels in satisfaction of customers, greater levels
of customer loyalty and retention and to a greater success of organizations (e.g. Cronin et al.,
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Based on a literature review that based from the journal, it was found that customer
retention toward room in Primula Beach Resort was influenced by customer satisfaction,
customer trust, and product value. Former researcher has developed a framework linking
satisfaction, trust and product value to customer retention. The framework has it a main feature
which is to examine the main effects of each of the three independent variables on retention.
Doing so allows researcher to examine, among other things, the simultaneous influence of
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
CUSTOMER TRUST
CUSTOMER RETENTION
- Morgan & Hunt (1994) - Hansemark C. (2004)
- Tax et al. (1998) - T. Kahrig (2005)
- Garbarino & Johnson - Chatura (2003)
(1999) - Christopher (1993)
PRODUCT VALUE
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Figure 2.1: Conceptual Framework of Factors Influencing Customer Retention toward Room
ServiceTh
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
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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.
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
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
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
3.3 SAMPLING
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
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.
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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.
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
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.
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
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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Business Research Methodology (BRM 681)
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
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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Business Research Methodology (BRM 681)
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
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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Business Research Methodology (BRM 681)
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