Relationship quality as a predictor of B2B customer loyalty
This study aims to provide a picture of how relationship quality can influence customer loyalty in the business-to-business (B2B) context.Building on prior research, we propose relationship quality as a higher construct comprising trust, commitment, satisfaction and service quality.We believe that these dimensions of relationship quality can reasonably explain the influence of overall relationship quality on customer loyalty. Inaddition, this study provides more insightful explanations of the influence of relationship quality on customer loyalty through two levels ofrelationship quality: relationship quality with employees of the supplier and relationship quality with the supplier itself as a whole. Aiming to fullyexplain the concept of customer loyalty, we follow the composite loyalty approach providing both behavioral aspects (purchase intentions) andattitudinal loyalty. We seek to address three main research issues: Does relationship quality influence both aspects of customer loyalty? If so,which relationship quality dimensions influence each of the components of customer loyalty? And which level of relationship quality (employeelevel versus organizational level) has more influence on customer loyalty? This study uses the courier delivery service context in Australia andtargets Australian Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs). We selected mail survey and online survey as the two methods of data collection, andtogether they received 306 usable respondents. Structural equation modeling yields insights into the influence of the dimensions and levels ofrelationship quality on customer loyalty. Results show that all four dimensions of relationship quality influence attitudinal loyalty, however, onlysatisfaction and perceived service quality influence behavioral loyalty (purchase intentions). Most remarkably, results indicate that only theorganizational level of relationship quality influences customer loyalty. The employee level of relationship quality does not play a significant ininfluencing B2B customer loyalty in this study.
Year of publication: |
2003
|
---|---|
Authors: | Rauyruen Papassapa ; Miller Kenneth |
Publisher: |
Elsevier Sci Ireland Ltd |
Saved in:
freely available
Saved in favorites
Similar items by person
-
Relationship quality as a predictor of B2B customer loyalty
Rauyruen Papassapa, (2005)
-
B2B services: Linking service loyalty and brand equity
Rauyruen Papassapa, (2009)
-
Kattiyapornpong Uraiporn, (2007)
- More ...