Closeness, strength, and satisfaction: Examining the nature of relationships between providers of financial services and their retail customers

Reassessing Relationships in Consumer Markets: Emotion, Cognition, and Consumer Relationship Intention

“…Whereas cognitionbased motivations explain more functional outcomes (e.g., repurchase intention), emotion-based motivations explain other manifestations such as altruism, switching intentions, and acquiescence, which may represent higher forms of dedication to the provider. As suggested by Barnes (1997), affective variables contribute the most to the establishment of dedicated and close customer relationships. Notes: The (-) sign indicates that the question was reverse-coded for consistency.…”

“…The term relationship is often used to underpin a supplier's marketing activities based on the assumption that a relationship can be formed with any customer, in any situation (Blois, 1997). A review of the literature on RM still reveals a definitive tendency to focus on the seller's perspective to the neglect of the buyer's perspective (Barnes, 1997;Sheth & Parvatiyar, 1995). However, it must be questioned whether a relationship exists when the exchange has been examined from the point of view of only one party to the exchange (Blois, 2003).…”

“…This type of relationship would be "dedication based" (Bendapudi & Berry, 1997): Consumers develop a relationship with a firm for its own sake, apart from its purely instrumental worth (Gundlach, Achrol, & Mentzer, 1995). The development of a future dedicated relationship can be determined by this emotional content (Barnes, 1997).…”

“…Consumers develop a relationship with a firm because they need it on the basis of cost benefit analyses (de Ruyter, Moorman, & Lemmink, 2001). These "emotionless" consumers (Liljander & Strandvik, 1996), satisfied but not close (Barnes, 1997), will not invest in the relationship beyond prescribed roles because they make a more conscious evaluation of the rewards and benefits of repatronage. Thus, although these consumers may possess a favorable disposition toward the firm and repurchase a particular product, they will have a low relationship intention (Kumar et al, 2003).…”

“…Thus, although these consumers may possess a favorable disposition toward the firm and repurchase a particular product, they will have a low relationship intention (Kumar et al, 2003). Conversely, a customer may not purchase regularly from a firm and still perceive something of a relationship with that firm (Barnes, 1997) in a kind of "latent loyalty" (Dick & Basu, 1994). These relationships, predicated mostly on the material benefits of the exchange, are likely to suffer from higher turnover, development of alternatives, and opportunistic behavior (Gundlach et al, 1995).…”