Reinvestigating Key Factors of Customer Satisfaction Affecting Customer Retention for Fast Food Industry

It is an undisputed fact that the cost of Customer Retention is far lesser than that of acquiring fresh ones. Customer satisfaction is undoubtedly one of the strong factors ensuring customer retention. Several researches have been done in the past to identify factors influencing customer satisfaction and in turn leading to customer retention. With changing perceptions, preferences and markets, we find a need to reinvestigate what are the key factors of customer satisfaction affecting customer retention in Malaysian fast food industry. Product quality, service quality, prices, facility and emotional factor are selected as factors of customer satisfaction (independent variables) based on extensive literature review. The research uses primary data collected from 180 Malaysian fast food customers using a multi-factor questionnaire with a Likert-scale from 1 to 5. To ensure reliability and validity the questionnaire was checked by Cronbach’s Alpha and principal components analysis was carried out. Correlation and regression analysis is conducted using SPSS 21 to identify influence and impact of selected factors on customer retention. Descriptive statistics show that the most significant key factor of customer satisfaction is emotional factor followed by store facility, service quality and prices and the lease poor is product quality. Emotional factor and facility plays important role in customer satisfaction that ensures customer retention in Malaysian fast food industry.