Secondary And Primary Data Sources

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

3.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter described the study area and detailed method which will be followed to collect the data for the study. Consistent with our research objectives, we focus on the Nigerian Hotel industry.

According to (Enz, 2001), there are three general purposes for conducting research and they are the following:

Descriptive

Explanative and

Explorative.

Descriptive research can be defined as showcasing the precise profiles of persons, proceedings or circumstances. Explorative research characterizes looking for novel insights, the making of enquiries or the ushering of some phenomenon into limelight. Lastly, explanative research targets at getting hold of a reason for a particular condition or problem, usually in the form of informal associations.

Primarily, this research study will be of descriptive character, as it will also mull over the way in which organizations function. To an extent, this research study will also be explorative in the sense that the rationale of this specific dissertation is to put on a better indulgence of how proficient service providers keep hold of their targeted customers over a period of time.

According to (Enz, 2001), strategies used for research include archival analysis, survey, experiments, histories, and case studies.

There are ultimate customer acquisition and retention initiatives which exhibit a high degree of erudition in their customer commitment activities. As this is, they recommend an ultimate circumstance in which to appreciate customer acquisition and retention orientations. In addition, there exists a great customer bases and stable sharing out of resources to improve or increase their customer service technologies under major aggressive pressures. Therefore, they present a good background for accepting customer knowledge growth and resource compositions.

Relationship point of reference implies business acumen, that is, the competence to recognize customers’ needs, conduct, preferences and anticipations to recognize key customer sections and then make the most of the returns gotten from each of them. Knowing the customer goes along with the top five mainly disturbing problems which hotel managers face (Enz, 2001). Obtaining exact customer information is essential to classify the hotel qualities that accomplish their obligations, to advance ground-breaking and tailor-made services, and extend targeted advertising strategies, the concluding objective being to get hold of and hold on to precious customers. Each communication with the customer will either build or erode value in the association and then affects future contacts, depending on the information and behavioural insight hotel organizations achieve during the process and the aptitude to decipher it into a logical reaction.

3.2 JUSTIFICATION OF THE RESEARCH

Failure in meeting customer anticipations has two significant implications for business. The first implication is that if a company that is operating in the hotel business fails in the customer‘s acuity, there is the possibility of losing that customer to the competition. And the second implication is the intermittent complaints from customers, implying that the company’s failure to discover a satisfactory and permanent reply to complains may result in a loss of confidence and importance in the company. In both cases, this implies loss of business for the company.

This study is targeted at evaluating the gaps in customer relationship management in the Nigerian hotel industry using the Sheraton Hotel Abuja as a case study.

Not forgetting that Nigeria is working towards becoming a target destination for many people looking for African destinations, such a method will enable the hotel industry to make its input to this dream. At present, the industry may serve to weaken the government idea since customers are unable to achieve the excellence of services they look for. However, looking into the efficacy of Customer Relationship Management approach will chip in to the information of likely helpful approaches that can work in the Nigerian hotel industry, thus contributing to the industry and country success.

3.3 RESEARCH DESIGN

The study will adopt a case study approach because that will provide in-depth information in addressing the objectives of the study. In all, fifty (50) questionnaires will be administered to the management staff of the selected hotel in the Abuja Metropolis of Federal Capital Territory to solicit their views on the gaps of Customer Relationship Management in Nigerian hotel industry taking the Sheraton Hotel Abuja as a case study.

The study will be carried out in Sheraton Hotel Abuja with a total sample size of fifty (50) picked at random while checking-in at the Sheraton Hotel Abuja. This area was chosen partly because of its proximity to the researcher and minimizes cost because of easy accessibility. The Abuja Metropolis has many hotels that form the Hotel Owners Forum Abuja (HOFA) which is an association of all owners /investors in the hotel industry in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja - Nigeria.

Fifty (50) representative guests will be considered for this research. Purposive sample technique will be used to select the guests at the selected hotel. One questionnaire will serve each of the randomly selected guests.

Therefore, the study will obtain the needed information directly from the guests since they are the ones to pinpoint the gaps of the customer relationship management of the Sheraton Hotel Abuja.

Primary data will be coded and entered in line with Statistical Package for Social Scientist (SPSS). Relevant tables, descriptive statistics mainly percentages and charts will be generated from the software to establish relationships among the variables. This will enable the researcher to make relevant deductions.

Statistical Analysis

Data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics in order to meet the objectives of this study.

Objective 1: Identify the gaps between customer awareness and expectation

Objective 2: Suggest the ways of closing the gaps in customer relationship management

Objective 3: Evaluate the impact of successful CRM in Nigerian hotel industry

3.4 SECONDARY AND PRIMARY DATA SOURCES

Primary data will be mainly used in this study and will be complemented with secondary data. The primary data will be obtained from the guests at the Sheraton Hotel Abuja through the use of structured questionnaire with the help of the front desk at the hotel who would help in giving the questionnaire to the guests as they check-in to the hotel. The questionnaire will also be drawn based on the objectives of the research.

A questionnaire is a research tool comprising of a sequence of questions for the purpose of getting together information from respondents. Although they are frequently intended to be used for the analysis of the data collected from the respondents, it is not a regular occurrence. The questionnaire is an invention made by Sir Francis Galton.

A questionnaire has advantages over several other kinds of surveys because they are inexpensive, do not need a great deal of effort from the questioner in the form of verbal or telephone surveys, and often have consistent answers that make it straightforward to collect data. However, such homogeneous answers may aggravate users. A questionnaire could also be sharply imperfect considering the fact that the respondents must be able adequately literate to respond to the questionnaire.

Types

It has been observed that there is a difference between questionnaires with questions that assess separate variables, and questionnaires whose questions are aggregated into either a scale or an index. A questionnaire within the former category is usually part of surveys, while a questionnaire in the latter category is usually part of tests.

A questionnaire with questions that assess respective variables, would for example include questions based on:

behaviors like food consumption

preferences like a political party

facts as in gender

Questionnaires whose questions are combined into one of these two; a scale or an index, which contains questions that assess:

attitudes such as immigration

latent traits such as personality traits

an index like a socioeconomic status

The Construction of a Questionnaire

The construction of a questionnaire involves the types of questions to be asked. More often than not, a questionnaire comprises of a number of questions which the respondent will have to reply in a set arrangement. There exists a pragmatic peculiarity between open-ended and closed-ended questions. The open-ended question entails that the respondents formulate his private response, whereas for a closed-ended question the respondent will eventually have to select a response from a particular number of options. The response alternatives for a closed-ended question ought to be comprehensive and jointly restricted. There is typically a flow that should be pursued when creating a questionnaire in regards to the sequence that the questions are asked. The sequence takes this pattern:

Screen

Warm-up

Transition

Skip

Difficult

Classification

The screens are employed as a selection technique to discover before time whether or not there will be a need for someone to fill-in the questionnaire. Warm-ups are easy to react to, help create attention on the survey, and may not even be relevant to research goals. Transition questions are used to create diverse areas flow well together. Skips include questions related to "If yes, kindly respond to question 3. If no, kindly go on to question 5." Complex questions are just shortly towards the end of the questionnaire as the respondent is in a frame of mind to answer the questions correctly. Moreover, when carrying out an online questionnaire, the advancement bars will allow the respondent recognizes that they are nearly done so they are further eager to respond to more not-easy questions. Classification, or demographic, question ought to be at the end because characteristically they can consider like individual questions which will make respondents uncomfortable and unwilling to conclude the assessment.

Basic rules for questionnaire item construction

Make use of statements which allow persons who have different views or features will give diverse responses.

Make use of statements which are interpreted in similar ways by associates of diverse substrata of the population which we are concerned with.

Utilize only the phase of the construct which you are concerned about at a time.

You should think of using an open response group following a catalog of likely answers.

You should use plain and graspable diction, effortlessly logical for every learning stages

Make use of affirmative expressions and steer clear of negatives or double negatives.

Make sure that you circumvent items which have in excess of one question for each item

Ensure not to put together suppositions about the respondents.

Endeavour to use correct spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Questionnaire administration modes

There are diverse modes of running questionnaires which are mainly the following:

Administration of paper-and-pencil questionnaire, in which the entries are to be had on paper.

Administration of face-to-face questionnaire, in which an interviewer presents the entries by words of mouth.

Adaptive computerized questionnaire administration, in which a range of entries is captured on the computer, and on the basis of the answers given from the range of entries, the computer captures subsequent entries optimized for the respondents’ anticipated capability or attribute.

Computerized questionnaire administration, in which the entries are captured on the computer.

Apprehension over questionnaires

While questionnaires are reasonably priced, swift, and easy to evaluate, frequently the questionnaire can have more harms than reimbursement. For instance, distinct from interviews, the people carrying out the research may by no means discern whether the respondent got an understanding of the question which was asked. Moreover, since the questions are so exact to the objectives of the researchers, even the data gathered can be negligible. Besides, questionnaires generate very low come back rates, whether they are correspondence or online questionnaires. The supplementary problem linked with return rates is that frequently the people who often give back the questionnaire are those who possess a totally positive or a totally negative stance and want their view heard. The people that are most likely impartial considering the two sides usually don't act in response as they perceive it not to be worthy of their moment.

THE QUESTIONNAIRE

The questionnaire is in this format and they are measured using the following variables:

Sex: it is measured using male and female as its variables

Age of respondents: it is measured using the actual age of the respondents

Educational Status: it is measured using variables like primary, secondary and tertiary education as its variables

Marital status of respondents: it is measured using single, married, divorced, separated and widowed

Years of patronising the hotel: it is measured using their actual years in the business

Knowledge and practices of Customer Relationship Management: it is measured using these "I have not heard of Customer Relationship Management" and "I have good knowledge"

Do you think this hotel practices Customer Relationship Management: it is measured using variables like yes, no and do not believe in Customer Relationship Management

How is data kept: it is measured using these variables like by hand, and simple database

Challenges faced by hotels in Customer Relationship Management: it is measured using personnel, finance, IT infrastructure as variables.

Involvement of top management in the activities of hotel: it is measured using yes and no as variables.

Extent of involvement of top management: it is measured using not involved, averagely involved and absolutely involved.

Problems of hotel industry: it is measured using these variables – Non-availability of Personnel, lack of qualified personnel, lack of experience, lack of good management, lack of motivation as staff do not understand CR

Does the hotel have an excellent IT: it is measured using yes and no

If no, why?: this is an open-ended question

Is the financial strength increasing or reducing the use of Customer Relationship Management?

Does the hotel receive loans from financial institutions? It is measured using yes or no.

How often do visitors check-in? It is measured using rarely, seldom, frequently and always

Do you get in touch after first visit? It is measured using yes and no

If yes, Medium of communication? It is measured using Email, letter writing, telephone calls,

Subject for communication? It is measured using Room reservation, customer service management, service delivery, complaints,

For what purposes do managers relate to first-time and frequent customers? It is an open-ended question

Do you continue to check-in after your first visit? It is measured using yes and no

Do you think Customer Relationship Management leads to customer loyalty? It is measured using yes and no

3.5 INTERVIEW

The personal interview method will be used to gather data from respondents in the study area with the aid of a structured questionnaire. The advantage of this is that, the enumerator could clarify any questions which might not be clear to the respondents during the course of the interview.

3.6 FOCUS GROUP

Detailed customer information could be said to be the most important variable in shaping which attainment strategy will be most efficient. This will control everything starting from publicity to associate relationships to pricing and new product launches. The three major areas to appreciate are demographics, performance or usage information, and duration value. Customer demographic and practice information needs large quantities of data analysis and tracking, but in the end it pays colossal dividends to the companies which can precisely model it.

Certain industries have right to use this data more easily than others. For instance, social networks have right to use comprehensive demographic information and online gaming companies have thorough information on player usage and community relations. In spite of the intrinsic advantages or disadvantages of a specific industry, invest in systems that record and track this information. Analytics and information pulling out will help companies construct correct customer profiles. These customer profiles will be the most expensive source of information that drives an achievement strategy and helps decide the means and methods most likely to attain your key subset of customers.

According to Barbour (2007), focus group tactic can be marked out back to group interviews in common psychological research to develop social distance magnitude. For more than ten decades or more, focus groups are being used for numerous reasons. Particularly, the United States military, Marxist radicals, literacy campaigners and feminist activists have accepted the focus group technique as a means to permit them to proceed in their causes and concerns. In spite of an obvious reality that focus groups were originally built up as an educational research means, as from the 1950s they have turned out to be more tantamount to market research. Meanwhile, the focus group technique has now been recapturing further reputation among scholastic associates in the health and social sciences. A lot of these associates have been building the technique and navigating it to go well with their research wishes.

The extra modern attractiveness of focus groups in superior study in the health and social sciences is reproduced in a growing figure of publications. The motive that focus groups have become accepted in modern period is partially because these are perceived to be the means which can offer results promptly. This is seen as a technique which can spawn multifaceted data at little price and taking the least amount of time. Focus groups can also be employed while considering an extensive scope of people and groups in diverse settings. Nonetheless, this specific declaration has been challenged by numerous authors on focus groups (Wilkinson, 2004) as the focus group technique is not as economical, simple and fast as it has been declared. Focus groups have, in full swing, begun to increase in fame in research sharing diverse social groups, even in cross-cultural and advancement research. The chief bone of contention for using them in this perspective is their joint character. This may go well with individuals who cannot communicate their opinions effortlessly and offer group control to the people who have been seen as unimportant.

3.7 CONCLUSION

According to Morgan (2002), a well-known researcher on focus group, two main types of focus groups exist: a structured approach that is in use more in market research; and a less strict and structured approach which has materialized from research into focus groups in the social sciences.

This study will be looking into the efficiency of Customer Relationship Management approach which will enable the researcher to chip in to the information of probable obliging approaches that can work in the Nigerian hotel industry. Fifty (50) respondents will be sampled for this study. Purposive random sampling technique is the sampling technique to be used in selecting the respondents at the selected hotel. Primary data is the main source of data to be used for this research as it will be coded and entered in line with Statistical Package for Social Scientist (SPSS). The data collected will be analyzed using descriptive statistics in order to meet the objectives of this study.

Additionally, discussion between the participants will be minimal and they are likely to answer the set questions posed by the moderators (Stewart et al., 2009). Hence, the moderators primarily aim to facilitate discussion, rather than to direct it as the aim of focus groups in social science research is to understand the participants’ meanings and interpretations. Morgan (2002) argues that, depending on the research topic and theoretical approach, both approaches can be adopted within the social sciences.