MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING STATE BANK OF VIETNAM BANKING UNIVERSITY HO CHI MINH CITY LE NGOC TRAM ANH THE INFLUENCE OF RELATIONSHIP MARKETING TO CREDIT CARD CUSTOMERS’ LOYALTY AT HO CHI MINH BRANCH SHINHAN VIET NAM MAJOR: FINANCE AND BANKING MAJOR NUMBER: 7340201 GRADUATION THESIS HO CHI MINH - 2018 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING STATE BANK OF VIETNAM BANKING UNIVERSITY HO CHI MINH CITY LE NGOC TRAM ANH THE INFLUENCE OF RELATIONSHIP MARKETING TO CREDIT CARD CUSTOMERS’ LOYALTY AT HO CHI MINH BRANCH SHINHAN VIET NAM MAJOR: FINANCE AND BANKING MAJOR NUMBER: 7340201 GRADUATION THESIS SUPERVISOR: PhD. TRAN KIM LONG HO CHI MINH - 2018 i ABSTRACT Author ANH, Tram Ngoc LE Title The influence of relationship marketing to credit card customers’ loyalty at Ho Chi Minh branch Shinhan Viet Nam Language English Instructor LONG, Kim TRAN Credit card products play an essential role in Shinhan Viet Nam’s business planning and profit and with the aim to gaining high qualify ANZ personal customers to pursue scope of becoming a top third bank in credit card field, Shinhan Viet Nam did an M&A with ANZ Viet Nam. But after M&A happened, Shinhan bank, especially Ho Chi Minh branch, witnessed a significant increase in the number of withdraw customers, and an internal survey had been done with the results pointed out the decrease in loyalty was the main reason for this tendency. Because the backbone of credit card products is a relationship between customers and the bank then relationship marketing had been chosen as a solution for this trend due to the aim of this is building, maintaining and enhancing a relationship with final purpose to get the loyalty of customers.
The aim of this study was to examine the influence of relationship marketing to the loyalty of credit card customers to see as if this is the key to solve problems of Ho Chi Minh branch and Shinhan Bank. The study chose five underpinnings of relationship marketing including trust, commitment, communication, conflict handling and empathy as independent variables with loyalty as a dependent variable, by using questionnaire survey, Cronbach’s Alpha, Exploratory Factor Analysis and Regression test, this study gave a conclusion that all five underpinnings have a positive relationship with loyalty. Additionally, trust, commitment and conflict handling were three underpinnings had strong affection with loyalty while communication and empathy had a weak one. This confirmed that relationship marketing was one of the tools to solve loyalty problem at Ho Chi Minh branch, Shinhan Viet Nam.
Keywords: Relationship marketing, Credit Card, Loyalty, Ho Chi Minh branch Shinhan bank ii DECLARATION OF AUTHENCITY Full name: Le Ngoc Tram Anh Student class: HQ02-GE01, faculty of Banking and Finance, Banking University of Ho Chi Minh city. Student code: 030630140298 I declare that this thesis has been composed solely by myself and that it has not been submitted, in whole or in part, in any previous application for a degree. Except where states otherwise by reference or acknowledgment, the work presented is entirely my own. Ho Chi Minh City, December 12th 2018 Author Le Ngoc Tram Anh iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Frist of all, I would like to thank all lectures at Banking University of Ho Chi Minh City.
Your enthusiastic and devoted instruction helped me to improve not only my major knowledge but also soft skills which helps me a lot in doing the study. Especially, my supervisor Mr. Tram Kim Long who enthusiastically instructed and encouraged me to complete this graduation study, without you I have no direction and effort to persuade this study. Last but not least, I want to express my grateful to my parents who always love unconditionaly and believe in my choices, my younger brother, friends who beside me at my up and down mood, Jerry Nguyen who teaches me a lot about dealing with stress problems.
Ho Chi Minh City, December 12th 2018 Author Le Ngoc Tram Anh iv TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. vii LIST OF ACRONYMS. vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .4 Subject and Scope of research .1 Subject of study .2 Scope of the study. Contributions of research.
5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. 9 CHAPTER 3: DATA AND METHODOLOGY .3 Data analysis methods .2 Exploratory factor analysis (EFA). 22 CHAPTER 4: STUDY RESULTS .2 Scale preliminary verification .1 Cronbach’s Alpha results.3 Verify presumptions of the model .4 Fitness of the model .5 Relationship between geographic variable with loyalty .1 The relationship between Genre and Married Status with Loyalty .2 The relationship between Age, Study and Income level with Loyalty. 51 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND LIMITATIONS .1 Conclusion and Recommendations .1 Group of strong affection .2 Group of weak affection .2 Limitations and suggestion for further researches.
61 vi LIST OF ACRONYMS Abbreviations Full meaning EFA Exploratory Factor Analysis HCM Ho Chi Minh VND Viet Nam Dong SPSS Statistical package for Social Sciences RM Relationship Marketing KMO Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin LO Loyalty TR Trust CO Commitment COM Communication CF Conflict handling EM Empathy vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Name Page Figure 2.1: First Reference Theoretical framework .2: Second Reference Theoretical framework .3: Third Reference Theoretical framework .4: Fourth Reference Theoretical framework .1: Suggestion Theoretical framework.1: Reality of HCM’s branch .2: Cronbach’s alpha results summarize .3: RM’s First Rotated Component Matrixa test result .4: RM’s Second Rotated Component Matrixa result .5: RM’s KMO and Bartlett's Test result .6: LO’s KMO and Bartlett's Test result .7: LO’s Total Variance Explained result .8: LO’s Component Matrixa result .10: Correlations test result .11: Coefficientsa test result .15: Relationship between Genre and Loyalty .16: Males’ and Females’ loyalty .17: Relationship between Married Status and Loyalty. 51 viii LIST OF GRAPHS Graph 4.3: Normal P-P Plot of Regression standardized residual chart. Research background In the context of global economic integration and globalization, the geographical, space, time-bound trade and cultural practices among ethnic groups and countries in the world are gradually narrowing, this trend brings huge opportunities for the business, but this is also a challenge for each one in the competitive market, especially in the banking industry which supplies over demand. Traditional marketing which focuses on 4P model has not shown much effective in the new era, as a result, a new marketing models that focus on building relationships has been referred which is not built mainly based on physical or technical but using the human factor, it takes the advantage from the relationship between people and people and using this as a scope in marketing activities.
Modern marketing not only has the power to help business keep tracking with market changes but also strive to build good relationships with customers. In the era, business to customers (B2C) quite challenging because the behavior of each customer group in the decision-making process is very different as in which consumers purchasing options are often influenced by emotional factors. Levitt (1981) mentioned that customers’ behavior of establishing relationships with people rather than goods indeed prove that customer relationship marketing is an effective method to meet customers’ needs. With this statement and the expanding of the internet in the 21st century, people are not only seeking information from sellers but also from friends, relatives and social networks such as Facebook.
According to Sarah (2018), the more loyal customers which business could maintain the greater number of new potential customers they could gain. Additionally, Berry (1983) added that relationship marketing is the backbone for any service industry business and the core strategy which ensured a company gets the customers it require to run. He also emphasized that attracting new customers should be viewed only as an intermediate step in the marketing process. Solidifying the relationships, turning existing customers into a loyal one should be considered as the main objective for marketing.
2 Since the beginning of the 20th century, Vietnam finance industry has witnessed significant growth in size and value, especially in Ho Chi Minh city. Ho Chi Minh city is considered as a great potential market for banking industry due to the increased incomes among the citizens alone with macroeconomic stability. According to the census performed in 2009, Ho Chi Minh city has an average capital income of $456 per person, which is 38% higher than other cities (Hang, 2018) and the demand of using a credit card is increase (Khue,2018) as well as the tendency using cashless in modern era, people have became more interested in credit card products to convenient for their spending and many international banks have tried to enter the market. As the result, many Merge and Acquisition (M&A) of international and local banks has occurred, and the most outstanding is the M&A in Viet Nam between Shinhan Bank and ANZ1 bank which expected to expand Shinhan credit card business network thanks to the great amount of ANZ Viet Nam’s current high salary customers (around 125.000 people – according to ANZ internal report) However, according to the internal report of Shinhan marketing and transaction department, the amount of ANZ credit card customers had a significant drop (5% in standard level and 12% in platinum level) after the announcement in December 2017.
This trend keeps going in the two-last quarter of 2018, the number of leaving customers is 8 customers and 1 customer per day with standard and platinum card respectively; also, it is not only in ANZ credit card customers but also in Shinhan current figure. The data also shown that after the M&A, the number of Shinhan credit card customers leaving the bank has been increased to 9 people per week which is nearly triple compared to before the M&A. An internal survey with credit card customers had been conducted, the results shown that decrease in loyalty level was a main reason for leaving and survey also pointed out that the mark of loyalty score has dropped from 8 to 5.5 point in the last five months, while the level 1 On 21th April 2017, Shinhan bank officially announced that it has acquired Vietnam ANZ Bank’s Retail Division 3 of loyalty at Citi and HSBC are still maintained stably at 8,5 and 7 points respectively, this must consider as an alarming signal for Shinhan Bank in this competitive market. Ho Chi Minh branch had one of the fastest growth in new customer base from 2011 to 20162.
Thanks to its location and establishment, Ho Chi Minh branch could be said as a “fertile land” bringing a relatively high profit for Shinhan Bank, with an average of 28 new purchasing customer per week from 2014 to 2016. Marketing department predicted that the number of new card customers would be around 50 to 60 per week prior to the M&A. However, the figure for last quarter shows that the real number was 32 customers per week, after the M&A in 2017, despite many sale promotions. With the goal of extending the business card division and becoming the top 3 credit card bank in Vietnam in the next 3 years, Shinhan Bank, particularly Ho Chi Minh branch, needs an improved marketing strategy to maintain a relationship with current customers, especially in card department.
Relationship marketing, which could have seen as a revolution of marketing from 4P or 6P marketing mix to a new model that using two-way communication not just one-way like the old concept. This new strategy shows effective in all seven steps (attracting, establishing, creating, developing, maintaining, strengthening and loyalty) of gaining a loyal customer not just about attracting. Additionally, in the high competition market, the cost to attract a new customer 5-6 times the cost of retaining an old customer. Credit card products based on a relationship between bank and customer, therefore relationship marketing could be one of the right, suitable and wide-chosen methods.