Nowadays, there seems to be fierce competition in the bottling market of Ethiopia. One of the key issues mainly raised is the companyâ€™s ability to develop effective employees who have a good relationship with customers, retains its existing customers and looks for more. The general objective of this study was to examine the relationship between employee motivation and customer loyalty explained through relationship building in the case of bottling companies. The researchâ€™s specific objectives were to investigate if employee motivation impacts customer relationship building, to examine the effect of relationship building on customer loyalty, to examine the direct effect of employee motivation on customer loyalty and investigating the effect of employee motivation on customer loyalty through the mediating role of relationship building. Questionnaire was used as a data collection tool to gather data from 228 employees of Habesha Breweries and 156 employees of Gold water. The analysis was done with the help of process Macro of Andree Hayes and Baron and Kennyâ€™s regression method. Findings revealed that employee motivation has a direct insignificant effect on customer loyalty at Habesha and employee motivation has a direct significant effect on customer loyalty at Gold water. Additionally, for both companies, employee motivation has a major positive impact on relationship building; relationship building has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty and employee motivation has an indirect effect on customer loyalty through relationship building. The study recommended that both companies should invest their resource and capacity to motivate their employees. Also, there should be further study on the effects of employee motivation and customer loyalty in other industries found in Ethiopia.rnKey words: Employee motivation, Relationship building, Customer loyalty