On the Mechanism of Relationship Bonds Affecting Customer Commitment in Service Enterprises: On the Perspective of Personal Relationship

Abstract

As the focus of relationship marketing, customer relationship may occur at the enterprise level, as well as the interpersonal level, and in some cases, the interpersonal level relationship may even go beyond the enterprise level relationship and become more important. This phenomenon exists not only in the B2B field, but also abounds in the B2C field, especially in the service business. However, there is not much research of interpersonal relationship in service sector. The existing research is mainly about salesman or business agent in retailing. After literature review we choose "bonds" and "customer commitment" as the main variables, and divide bonds into two kinds according to different connecting subjects: enterprise bonds and personal bonds, and based on this we put forward the mechanism model of personal bonds affecting customer commitment to the enterprise so as to guide managers to maintain better customer relationship by making good use of the interpersonal relationship, and to effectively reduce the risk which the turnover of key personnel brings to the enterprise.