The effect of customer relationship management activities on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in Azerbaijan retail industry

The aim of the most organizations to apply the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) processes is strengthening their relationship with customers, transforming them to the affiliated customers, and through that successfully achieving the business goals. As other organizations, the organizations within the retail sector investigate the sector, apply the most appropriate CRM trends to the operations, try to differentiate their product/services, and present the customers motive to choose it among other competitors. For the purpose analyzing the real-life cases and comparing the reality with the theory within the literature, this thesis aims to analyze the CRM activities of retail organizations in Azerbaijan and evaluate the effect of successful CRM processes on the customer affiliation. To achieve the thesis goal and test the hypotheses built based on literature review, as a representative of retail sector, 5 supermarkets located in Azerbaijan and their customers were included in this research. Firstly, three supermarket managers were interviewed for the purpose of discussing the general sector situation and define the CRM application knowledge within the Azerbaijan supermarkets. After that, for the purpose of defining the CRM application level of supermarkets, the survey with 31 questions containing 6 CRM dimensions was applied to 5 supermarkets. Finally, customer satisfaction and loyalty level of the supermarkets was evaluated through directing the online survey to 502 customers. As a result of the research, it was obtained that the high level of customer affiliation is achieved in case of the organization apply the most appropriate, or medium CRM level instead of applying all CRM trends and campaigns. The reason why the medium CRM level should be provided instead of the highest CRM level is the "other factors" that directly influence to the satisfaction and loyalty level of the customers. As a result of the research, it was revealed that the city of residence, education level, and monthly income level of the customers were defined as more influencing factors to the customer affiliation level of the supermarkets.