Influence Of Switching Cost On Customer Retention In Hotel Operations In Umuahia, Abia State

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the influenced of switching cost on customer retention in hotel operations in Umuahia Abia state. More specifically, the study sought to determine the influence of pricing, inconvenience, core service failure, service encounter failure attraction by competition as an incident of switching cost on customer retention in the study area. Five specific objectives, research questions and hypothesis guided the study. The study collected primary data using a well-structured questionnaire which was distributed to 300 respondents. Two hundred and eighty one (281) questionnaires was dully filled and retrieved. while descriptive statistics were used to analyze demographic variables. Simple regression was used to run the hypothesis on SPSS version 24 among others. The findings reveal that pricing, inconvenience and service encounter failure has a significant relationship with customer retention and therefore concludes that that switching cost to an extent can influence customer retention in hotel operation in study area and thus, recommends that hotel operations should consider their price rate and also make sure that their prices reflect on their services and facilities in other to maintain the loyal customer.