An insight into the impact of a retailer's relationship efforts on customers' attitudes and behavioral intentions

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of the paper is to summarize existing evidence about the behavioral sequence of relationship marketing at the individual customer level, and also to offer a conceptual model of the impact of particular behaviors that signal whether customers remain with or defect from the company. Design/methodology/approach -Based on the SEM tool of Lisrel (Linear Structure Relation), This study develops and empirically tests a model for examination of the impact of different relationship efforts (financial bonding, social bonding, and structural bonding) made by a retailer on key relationship marketing outcomes (perceived relationship investment, customer satisfaction, trust, relationship commitment, and behavioral intentions). A cross-department study in the financial services industry was conducted, based on three customer samples (from the departments of loans, deposits, and credit cards) drawn from XYZ bank, one of the most famous banks providing merchant banking services in Taiwan. Findings -SEM results indicate that retailers who undertake relationship efforts with loyal customers can positively affect these customers' attitudes and behavioral intentions. The findings suggest that financial services with different attributes require different kinds and levels of customer treatments and relationship efforts. They support the contention that the aggregation of customer satisfaction from continuous exchange leads to trust between the two parties (retailers and customers). They also suggest the direction of resource reallocation. Consequently, managers and employees of retail banks need to be trained, motivated, and rewarded for making relationship efforts with regular customers. Practical implications -According to the research, managers should segment their customers into several groups effectively and use different marketing programs for customers of various characteristics, so as to get correct and efficient results. Originality/value -The research suggests that managers of financial services institute should be serious about targeting investment dollars to improve customer satisfaction, and know why customers buy what they sell.

Building Relationship between Education Institutions and Students: Student Loyalty in Self-Financed Tertiary Education

“…Trust has been found to be a factor affecting commitment in many previous studies (Morgan and Hunt, 1994;Gannesan, 1994;Moorman, Zaltman and Desphande, 1992;Kassim and Abdulla, 2006;Liang and Wang, 2007).…”

A mediated model of relationship quality factors affecting behavioural intention at a luxury motor vehicle dealership

“…Commitment has also been found to be significantly related to behaviour intention and, with respect to its different categories as proposed by Parasuraman et al (1994), to different service, retail and luxury brand contexts (Fullerton, 2014;Jani and Han, 2011;Liang and Wang, 2007;Moreira and Silva, 2015;Shukla, Banerjee and Singh, 2016). Therefore, two relationship quality factors -customer satisfaction and commitment -are hypothesised to have significant relationships with each other and the behavioural intention of customers when post-purchase service and repairs at a luxury motor vehicle dealership are considered.…”

“…The studies conducted in different service-, retail-and luxury brand-related contexts as well as online environments (Becerra and Korgoankar, 2011;Forgas-Coll, Palau-Saumell, Sánchez-García and Caplliure-Giner, 2014;Liang and Wang, 2007;Limbu, Wolf and Lunsford, 2012) bear testament to the fact that trust has a significant positive relationship with customers" behavioural intentions. It was also found that trust holds a significant relationship with commitment in various service-related contexts as well as in a luxury brand context (Moreira and Silva, 2015;Ou et al, 2011;Sumaedi, Juniarti and Bakti, 2015;Shukla et al, 2016).…”

Customer personality and relationship satisfaction

“…Studies (Berry, 1983;Voss and Voss, 1997;Gwinner et al, 1998;Odekerken-Schroder et al, 2003;Liang and Wang, 2007;Dalziel et al, 2011) indicate that there is a positive association between marketer's RM strategies and customer's relationship satisfaction (CS).…”

“…Extant literature (e.g. Voss and Voss, 1997;Gwinner et al, 1998;Liang and Wang, 2007) shows that marketers/service providers widely use RM strategies such as personal communication, PT and rewarding to have long-term relationship with their customers. And these RM strategies contribute to the development of customer perception about the marketer's/ service provider's RM orientation.…”