The Role of Customer Service Management in Enhancing Sustainable Growth of Small-Scale Coffee Processing Industries in Moshi, Tanzania

This study aimed to assess the role of customer service management in enhancing the sustainable growth of small-scale coffee processing industries in Moshi Municipality, Tanzania. Specifically, it examined the influence of managing after-sales services, responsiveness, resilience, and reliability on the sustainable growth of these industries. A cross-sectional research design was employed, using a census sampling technique that involved 67 registered small-scale coffee processing industries. Primary data collected through questionnaires and interviews, while descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression models applied to analyse the quantitative data. The findings revealed that 59.4% of respondents strongly agreed that effectively managing responsiveness to customer orders significantly influenced the sustainable growth of small-scale coffee processing industries. In addition, improvements in after-sales services found to have a statistically significant contribution (p < 0.05) to sustainable growth. The study concludes that both reliability and customer service management exert a strong and significant influence on the sustainable development of small-scale coffee processing industries. The study recommends that enterprises prioritise the effective management of reliability and customer service functions to enhance sustainable growth. A key limitation of this research is that data collected solely from Moshi Municipality, which may limit the generalisability of the findings to other regions. Nonetheless, the study contributes theoretically to a deeper understanding of the role customer service management plays in fostering sustainable growth among small-scale coffee processing industries in Tanzania.