摘要：Customer orientation of service employees is seen as important success factor for gaining customer retention in Gano Excel, a direct selling company in Malaysia. The objective of this study is to understand how customer orientation (CO) of service employee (SE) can affect the commitment (COM) and customer retention (CR). A structural model of all the variables was developed for the study. Each variable is measured using 7-point interval scale which is grouped into 3 exogenous latent variables: technical skills (3 items), social skills (3 items), and decision making authority (3 items); and two endogenous latent variables: commitment (3 items) and customer retention (3 items). The responses collected were 119 completed questionnaires whereby, 2 respondents were deleted due to outliers problem (D2). The data was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through AMOS7. Confirmatory factor analysis of measurement models indicates adequate goodness of fit when 1 item was eliminated through modification indices verifications. Goodness of fit for the revised structural model shows adequate fit a[GFI=0.918, P-VALUE=0.359, RMSEA=0.021 and ratio (cmin/df) =1.053]. This study has established four direct significant and positive causal effects: (1) technical skill and commitment; (2) social skill and commitment; (3) technical skill and customer retention and (4) commitment and customer retention. The findings are discussed in details.
关键词：Customer Retention; Direct Selling Employees; Commitment; Customer Orientation ; Service Employee
