© 2013 Research Academy of Social Sciences http://www.rassweb.com 258 International Journal of Management Sciences Vol. 1, No. 7, 2013, 258-265 The Influence of Relationship Marketing Efforts on Consumers’ Satisfaction: The Case of the Mobile Telecommunications Industry in the Lowveld, Zimbabwe Munyaradzi Mutsikiwa 1 Abstract The major focus of this paper was to examine the influence of the relationship marketing efforts on consumers‘ satisfaction of a service industry: the Mobile Telecommunications Industry in the Lowveld, Zimbabwe. In this study a descriptive survey research was employed. A convenience sampling strategy was used to select respondents for the interviews which mainly consisted of street intercepts. The sample size for this study was made up of 110 respondents drawn from the two areas (60 respondents were drawn from Chiredzi and 50 from Triangle). The results have indicated that both corporate social responsibility programmes and loyalty programmes were good at predicting customer satisfaction. All these programmes were significant at p < 0.05. Therefore the major findings of this study have indicated that corporate social responsibility programmes and loyalty programmes have a positive effect on customer satisfaction. It is therefore imminent that when managers implement these programmes they should involve customers so that firms may be able to have an insight of what customers expect of these programmes. Keywords: Relationship marketing, loyalty programmes, corporate social responsibility programmes, consumer satisfaction. 1. Introduction Relationship marketing is one of the major topics that have drawn a lot of academic attention especially in the past two decades. Its genesis is rooted in the theories of services marketing and industrial marketing. Relationship marketing is a paradigm shift from short-run transactional marketing activities to long-run relational marketing activities (Gronroos, 1994). The fundamental issue that has forced organisations to develop these relationships emanates from the contention that companies are increasingly becoming customer centric and as such they need to meet customers ‗expectations. In doing so they may be able to retain loyal customers who are critical for the success of a business. Loyal customers are regarded as a competitive asset upon which competitive strategies are crafted (Dekimpe et al., 1997). According to Aaker (1997) loyal customers form the basis upon which price premiums are charged and reputable companies have taken these customers as tall entry barriers to new entrants in the business. Relationship marketing has been employed as a compass to guide the moment of truth that ultimately leads to an improvement on organisational profitability. It builds customer-seller relationships, addresses customer‘s needs and attention, builds trust with customers and protects the emotional well-being of customers. There is a general consensus that good relationships lead to good quality and good customer satisfaction (Gummerson, 1999). Edgar (2003) and Moller & Halinan (2000) note that relationships are driven by the socio-economic context under which they unfold. This also suggests that it is not every relationship effort that is successful in all situations, thus every organisation should be able to come up with those relationship practices that are effective to their endemic situations. In the Zimbabwean situation, the Mobile Telecommunications Industry has tried to build relationships with their customer as a result of a cut throat competition among the mobile network providers namely Econet Wireless, Telecel and Netone respectively. What is even interesting is that 1 Faculty of Commerce, Department of Management Studies, Great Zimbabwe University, Zimbabwe