Loading...
The role of customer gratitude in making relationship marketing investments successful
Hasan, Syed Fazal E. Lings, Ian Mortimer, Gary Neale, Larry
Hasan, Syed Fazal E.
Lings, Ian
Mortimer, Gary
Neale, Larry
Abstract
This paper recognises that customer loyalty is important for many competitive organisations, and that retail firms make investments to build and maintain loyal relationships with their existing and potential customers (e.g. loyalty programs). However, there has been little focus on the mechanisms by which these relationship investments operate to achieve customer loyalty. This paper examines one mechanism, namely customer gratitude, which works to make a firm’s relationship marketing investment a success or a failure. Using data from 1600 undergraduate students, this study empirically confirms the mediating role of customer gratitude between the customers’ perceptions a firm’s relationship marketing investments and customers’ perceptions of the value of the relationship with the firm. Further, a significant moderating effect of perceived benevolence on the relationship between customers’ perceptions a firm’s relationship marketing investments and customer gratitude was identified. For theorists, this customer gratitude model offers a better psychological explanation of how relationship marketing investments operate to improve the value that customers place on their relationships with retailers. Our research suggests that managers should invest resources to stimulate customer gratitude in order to build strong customer–seller relationships.
Keywords
Customer relationship management, Relationship value, Loyalty programs, Relationship investments, Benevolence, Gratitude, Muhammad Fazal-e-Hasan
Date
2014
Type
Journal article
Journal
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services
Book
Volume
21
Issue
5
Page Range
788-796
Article Number
ACU Department
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
File Access
Controlled