Influence of Customer Orientation on the Growth of Manufacturing Firms in Nakuru East and West....

Our firm is able to promote customer loyalty by delivering the expected services in the shortest time possible

From the descriptive, majority of the respondents agreed that their firm focus on identifying customer needs that guide in developing products and services. 70.4% of the respondents strongly agreed while 29.6% of them agreed recording a mean of 4.70 and a standard deviation of .461. In addition, 57.4% and 42.6% of the respondents agreed and strongly agreed respectively that they identify products and services that satisfy the desires of their customer. This statement had a mean of 4.43 and a standard deviation of .499. Respondents agreed that their company is able to recognize the complaints from their customers which are addressed promptly. 61.1% of the respondents strongly agreed while 37.0% of them agreed registering a mean of 4.59 and a standard deviation of .533.

Respondents further agreed that their firm is always customer oriented through creating and delivering value to the customer. 55.6% of the respondents strongly agreed while 44.4% of them agreed with a mean of 4.56 and a standard deviation of .502. With a mean of 4.74 and a standard deviation of .442, 74.1% and 25.9% of the respondents strongly agreed and agreed respectively that through customer orientation their company is able to identify the demands of their customers. Respondents agreed that their firm is able to promote customer loyalty by delivering the expected services in the shortest time possible. As such, 61.1% of the respondents strongly agreed while 38.9% of them agreed registering a mean of 4.61 and a standard deviation of .492.

They agreed that (M=4.56, SD=.572) they have managed to build a good relationship with their customers by responding to their needs. 59.3% of the respondents strongly agreed while 37.0% of them agreed. Finally, respondents agreed that their firm continuously monitor their customers' needs where 50.0% of the respondents agreed while 48.1% of them strongly agreed. This aspect had a mean of 4.46 and a standard deviation of .539. The respondents demonstrated high level of agreement with each other views with all aspects returning standard deviation values less than 0.6. Therefore the respondents had similar views with respect to the issues relating to customer orientation in manufacturing firms.

10.3 Growth of Manufacturing Firms Descriptive Statistics

The researcher sought to examine the growth of manufacturing firms in Nakuru town. The percentages mean and standard deviation were computed. Findings from the analysis were as presented in Table 2

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics on Growth of Manufacturing Firms