The Effect of Market-Mix Strategy on Corporate Customers Retention: In the Case of Tamrin Motors.

Abstract

In the contemporary hyper-competitive automotive landscape, marketing has transitioned from a peripheral function to a core strategic necessity for organizational resilience. This study investigates the empirical relationship between the expanded 7P’s Marketing Mix comprising Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Process, and Physical Evidence, and corporate customer retention within the context of Tamrin Motors After-Sales Service, Ethiopia. Despite a projected sectoral growth rate of 14.49% in the Ethiopian market, internal data at Tamrin Motors indicated a critical deficiency in institutional loyalty, with corporate conversion rates stagnating between 32.57% and 39.58% during the 2023–2024 period, signaling a failure to capitalize on market tailwinds. Utilizing a mixed-methods research design, the study synergized descriptive and explanatory frameworks to examine the underlying causal mechanisms of customer behavior. Given the specialized nature of the target population, a census method was employed, encompassing the organization's entire universe of 20 primary corporate clients, including 19 leading insurance institutions. Primary data were harvested via structured survey questionnaires (n=95) and semi-structured interviews with senior management to move beyond quantitative metrics and explore the "why" of managerial strategy. The research instrument demonstrated superior reliability, yielding a total Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of 0.929, ensuring the scientific rigor and stability of the findings. Data analysis, facilitated through SPSS (Version 27) and AMOS (Version 23), utilized descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to validate the hypothesized relationships. Descriptive findings reveal a significant divergence in strategic performance across the marketing variables. While Product and Promotional Strategies achieved high mean scores of 3.90, indicating that service quality (M = 4.02) and brand reputation (M = 4.00) serve as primary drivers of satisfaction, the Pricing Strategy yielded a lower moderate mean of 2.82. Specifically, the consideration of relevant costs received the lowest individual score (M = 2.33), highlighting a critical perceptual gap where high service quality is undermined by perceived price-value misalignment. The study concludes that the optimization of the 7P’s, specifically through value-based pricing and streamlined operational flows, is a prerequisite for reversing the decline in corporate retention. A longitudinal analysis further revealed a troubling disconnect between human capital investment and revenue generation, suggesting that workforce expansion must be coupled with tailored training and efficient service delivery protocols. These findings offer actionable policy recommendations for automotive service providers to bridge the gap between capacity and performance, while contributing to the academic discourse on B2B relationship management within emerging economies.