International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management United Kingdom Vol. II, Issue 10, Oct 2014 Licensed under Creative Common Page 1 http://ijecm.co.uk/ ISSN 2348 0386 AN ASSESSMENT OF SALES PROMOTION AS EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR CUSTOMER RETENTION IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY OF GHANA A CASE STUDY OF UNIVERSITY FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES, GHANA Sakara, Ahmed Department of Marketing, Tamale Polytechnic, Tamale, Ghana sakara412@yahoo.com Alhassan, Fatawu Department of Hotel, Catering & Institutional Management, Tamale Polytechnic, Tamale, Ghana alhassanfatawu29@yahoo.com Abstract Sales promotion is one of the key promotional mix elements that is commonly employed by firms that find themselves in very competitive industries like the telecommunication industry. The rationale behind the research was to establish whether sales promotion to any extent retains customers and to identify the perception of consumers on the benefits associated with sales promotion in the telecommunication industry.Students of UDS (Wa campus) constituted the population of the study. A descriptive research design was employed and a simple random sampling to select two hundred (200) students. The results from the study discovered that sales promotion is capable of retaining customers in a telecommunication network through sales promotional incentives. It was found that Sales promotion encourages competition among Mobile Network service providers thereby compelling the players in the industry to provide quality service to customers resulting in a greater benefit for the consumer. This study concludes that if a telecommunication network business wants to enjoy good profits globally and Ghana in particular, it should work hard to increase customer retention through customer satisfaction, strong sales promotional activities, trustworthiness and competitive pricing in the market place. The recommends that further researcher be conducted on the determinants of brand loyalty in the telecommunication industry. Keywords: Sales Promotion, Telecommunications industry, Customer retention, Ghana