The importance of customer awareness, satisfaction and loyalty in the provision of social security services in Tanzania: a case study of National Social Security Fund (NSSF).

The business environment in Tanzania market has been competitive such that both service and manufacturing organisations have to improve the quality of product/service offered to the market. Furthermore, the changes in conditions which have occurred in the Tanzanian market call for modification and establishment of good marketing strategies in the key functional areas within the organisation to create customer awareness, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. This is crucial for the survival of organisation because the targeted market should be aware of the service/product being offered, customers have to be satisfied with the service/product offered to the market, in order to remain loyal to the company. Customer loyalty is very important because finding new customers and doing business with them takes a lot of time, effort and money. It was the objective of this study to examine the extent of awareness among NSSF members (clients), and to identify factors that make customers loyal and satisfied with the services offered. Why some customers are not loyal and hence shift into another Pension Schemes operated in the country such as PPF (Parastatal Pension Fund) was also explored. Since NSSF is a new scheme introduced in the country, there is a need therefore, to create customer awareness about this scheme and the services offered. It has been revealed in this study that the majority of the clients are aware of NSSF itself, but what NSSF offered to the market is not known; meaning that people are not aware of different services being offered by NSSF. The study also revealed that more than 50% of respondents were not satisfied with services being offered by NSSF. They were not satisfied because, the majority also were not aware with some of the services offered by the Fund. For example among eight benefits offered by the Fund, only old age were known to people, having 55.3% of people being aware of it [Table 4.2.1(b)]. The results have management implications of which the following are relevant: In the areas of customer awareness the management of NSSF has to put more efforts and energy in introducing competitive advertisement campaigns so as to create awareness to the public. Advertisements should be made through TVs, Radios, Newspaper and Magazines using both English and Swahili Languages. NSSF Management also should establish a Marketing Division whereby all members will visit different employers and their employees after every six months to educate them about the services being offered, and the importance of those services to their future life. For the case of customer satisfaction NSSF management may have to improve more in benefit payment processing time, interest paid to members account, listening to customers problems and promise keeping. These factors were not well appealed to the majority of respondents. Therefore, to reduce the benefit processing time the Fund has to reduce the number of documents needed before a member qualifies to get his/her payments. Most of those documents are used to be misplaced hence difficult to be identified. Instead computers should be used to keep customer records which will make the task easier. The interest paid to members account should be updated yearly, to reflect the actual economic situation and the value of the shilling at that particular time. Also customers' problems should be given immediate attention so as to build good image for the company. It should be noted that the major source of customer dissatisfaction is un-kept promise. NSSF should not make promises which it can't keep. Therefore all promises made by the Fund should be implemented accordingly to avoid customer's discouragement. However, it is obvious that customer loyalty when awareness and satisfaction issues are improved, it would be enhanced.