1-3 Importance and necessity of research
Nowadays, the era of loyalty includes customer loyalty, employee loyalty, management loyalty, community loyalty, and principles. Many studies have shown that satisfaction is not the ultimate key to success and profit. In fact, market concepts that have emphasized this issue have not recognized it anymore, but today, only customers who feel a sense of belonging to the organizations are regarded as profitable and long-term capital (Haghighi Kafash et al, 2010). Loyalty is a moderating variable between service quality and customer satisfaction and economic performance. Loyalty is the extent to which customers want to retain their relationship with a supplier, and it is usually the case that to what extent
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Producing and delivering high quality and affordable services plays an important role in the service industry. In fact, nowadays customer satisfaction and service quality are considered as critical issues in most service industries (Haghighi Kafash et al. 2010).
1-4 review of literature
Creating trust, commitment to employee service, continuous relationship with customers and the proper management of conflicts, can be considered as the most important foundations of relationship marketing (Mohsan and Nawaz, 2011). Successful companies try more than unsuccessful companies to implement a relationship marketing strategy and build a long-term relationship with their customers (Adamson and Chan, 2008). Trust, relationship, shared values, empathy, and mutual effort has been identified as the most important foundations of relationship marketing (Sin and Tse, 2005). Relationship quality (RQ) is a branch of relationship marketing (R M). Due to the importance of relationship marketing in today's business world, the relationship quality is necessary to assess the strength of the relationship and the degree of satisfaction to meet the demands and expectations of the customer (Crosby et al., 1990; Smith, 1998). A good relationship quality can increase customers'
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Commitment Theory - Trust is suggested by demonstrating that trust and commitment are two main aspects for measuring the relationship quality. By integrating the perspectives of different researches, quality is measured in terms of trust, commitment, culture, interdependence, and contact. Although there is no agreement on the components of the relationship quality, generally, satisfaction and trust have been accepted as two important factors for measuring the relationship (Chakrabarty et al, 2007). Service providers can make long-term and stable relationships with their customers through customer satisfaction and trust and ultimately attract their loyalty. Therefore, in this research, the focus is on trust and satisfaction from the customer's perspective and the relationship quality. Creating customer loyalty is the most important goal of conducting relationship marketing activities. Oliver (1997, p. 3) defines customer loyalty as "a profound commitment to a product or service that leads to repeat purchase of brand or the set of the brand in the future, surely with situational factors and marketing efforts that
Zeithaml, V., Parasuraman, A., & Berry, L. (1990). Delivering quality service: balancing customer perceptions and expectations. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster.
Grönroos, C. (2004). The relationship marketing process: communication, interaction, dialogue, value. Journal of Business & Industrial marketing, Vol 19, Issue: 2, 99-113.
Customer service is valued as a competitive tool by many organisations. It gives you the ability to gain customer loyalty while meeting the customer’s expectations. Staff will have many skills and knowledge that will provide a competitive edge. Most organisations are known for the quality of their customer service. This means that they are known for good customer service or poor customer service. However, being known for good customer service will attract customers. It will also attract customers who are usually hard to reach.
a) Good customer service is a critical component of a quality product. Collier (2011) states that service needs to be consistent, continuous, thoughtful and available. These are crucial in meeting and exceeding customer expectations. Collier also continues on to state that staff providing customer service must have appropriate skills, knowledge and personal attributes to execute a high standard of service. These skills have been identified by Collier as listening skills, punctuality, courtesy, integrity and grooming. The skills and qualities identified are reflected by the five key components of customer service tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The five components have been provided by the SERVQUAL service measuring
Both from the customer and the company point of view, each customer interaction is part of an iterative learning process (Ballantyne, 2004). Further, Yau et al. (2000) advocated that the relationships between business firms and its customers have been constantly encouraged as successful business practices worldwide. The strategy of relationship marketing is of high relevance particularly in the service industries because of the intangible nature of service and their high level of customer interaction (Al-Hersh, Aburoub, & Saaty, 2014). Relationship marketing is defined as the process of engaging in proactively creating, developing and maintaining committed, interactive and profitable exchanges with targeted customers (Haker, 1999). Furthermore, Gronroos (1990) asserted that relationship marketing is to establish, maintain, enhance and commercialise customer relationship so that the objectives of the parties involved are met which can be done by a mutual exchange and fulfillment of promises. Moreover, the implementation of the relationship marketing concept at the operational level refers to relationship marketing orientation (Hau & Ngo, 2012). Relationship marketing orientation indicates the firms’ philosophy of doing business concerning relationship building by propagating developing trust, empathy, bonding, and reciprocity between a firm and its customers (Sin et al., 2005a, b; Tse et al., 2004). Trust is an important element for a successful relationship between the firm and its customers (Berry, 1995). First, trust is an essential component for a successful relationship between the firm and its customers (Berry, 1995). Trust It refers to a willingness to rely on an exchange partner in whom one has confidence (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Empathy, as a dimension of business relationship, enables the two parties to see the situation from
Buyer-supplier relationship established since human beings started to trade goods and services. The relationship developed naturally over time after buyer and supplier developed trust and friendship which was supported by quality of product and services (Wilson. D.T, 1995). The relational development is accelerated as firms attempt to improve their relationship to achieve company goals. At the same time, the expectations in the performance have increased, and this has making the satisfactory relationship became more difficult.
Customer service is constantly evolving. A few decades ago, businesses considered customer service an unnecessary expense. Now, companies view it as a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Research reveals that “80% of CEOs believe they deliver a superior customer experience, but only 8% of their customers agree”.
Relationship marketing is a part of the marketing concept and strongly applies to this article. A company wants to build trust with its customers in order to build customer loyalty and a long-term bond. This gives the customer a value-added feature of doing business with a particular company. In marketing orientated companies, the customer's needs have to be targeted and different social classes or issues need to be taken into account. If a company does not take different sensitive and social groups into account when marketing, then they will not build a feeling of goodwill with the consumers. The consumer will think that the firm cares more about selling its goods than the consumer.
It's very well known that a companies success is not only dependant on the possession of a good product or service, but the key aspect to a successful business is excellent customer service. As the market grows, now more then ever companies are emerging, they are offering very similar types of products and services. Successful customer service can be a way a business becomes original and unique, it can be the key to attracting and maintaining loyal customers. Good customer service can start-up a business while bad customer service can harm a company. An average customer that experiences an issue will complaint to 9-10 people about the problem. A customer that received support to their problem and a potential solution will tell at least five
This essay is a critical literature review of Relationship Marketing in relation to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. In this review, I will provide a brief orientation of relationship marketing; identify the different dimensions of relationship marketing and critically analyse the concept of relationship marketing with regards to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
Customer Relationships is about building a relationship of trust and convenience. A customer wants the company they are working with to be intuitive. To know their needs before they do. They want to feel respected, they need to believe you are honest and have integrity. This relationship breeds comfort and familiarity and causes the consumer to continue to do business with your company. This relationship that is built develops a personal relationship, like a friendship and it is one that the consumer cannot get from the store down the road and it is that personal touch of sincerity, of knowing their needs, of servitude that will turn them into lifelong branded customers.
A long-lasting relationship is seen to be more profitable than constantly trying to attract new customers to single purchases. The focus in service marketing is therefore to create a valuable long-lasting relationship with the customer(Grönroos, 1994).
we would be tempted to believe that is a simple, linear relation between satisfaction and loyalty. According the research of (Jones & Sasser Jr., 1995) , relation satisfaction and loyalty is different according to time and circumstances. Unless they are totally satisfied, there is always a chance you will see your customers be lured away (Jones & Sasser Jr., 1995).
The dimensions of service quality refer to the attributes which contribute to consumer expectations and perceptions of service quality, thus serving as the determinants of consumers’ quality assessment (Rowley, 1998). The most well-known, commonly used service quality scale is the SERVQUAL, a general instrument for measuring service quality developed by Parasuraman et al., (1988). It includes five dimensions of service quality: (1) tangibles: appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials; (2) reliability: ability to perform the promised services dependably and accurately; (3) responsiveness: willingness to help customers and provide prompt service; (4) assurance: knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence; and (5) empathy: caring, individualized attention that a firm provides its
The recent growth in service sector in the economy is attributed to application of relationship marketing. Consumer’s quality experiences and subsequent satisfaction with the service are primarily an outcome of interaction relationship between service provider and the customer.