بازاریابی رابطه ای و رفتار تغییر مصرف کننده

The authors attempt to explain the relationships among relational bonds, customer value, and customer loyalty in three different consumer groups (stayers, dissatisfied switchers, and satisfied switchers) in the retail banking industry. Data were obtained from a sample of 613 Taiwanese bank customers. The findings are threefold. First, for stayers, three types of bonds (financial, social, and structural) improve customer utilitarian and hedonic values, thus leading to enhancement of customer loyalty. Second, for dissatisfied switchers, only the structural bond has a significant impact on customer's utilitarian value, which significantly improves customer loyalty. Third, for satisfied switchers, the social bond significantly affects the hedonic value, whereas the structural bond significantly affects the utilitarian value. Furthermore, both utilitarian and hedonic values have significant effects on customer loyalty. The authors discuss the managerial implications and directions for further research.

More than ever before, managers in the financial services industry must understand their customers so that they can better meet their best customers' needs and prevent them from switching to other companies. Any approach that addresses these issues is likely to meet with a great deal of interest, and relationship marketing has proven to be one of the most successful approaches (Dibb and Meadows, 2001). Relationship marketing, defined as marketing activities that attract, develop, maintain, and enhance customer relationships (Berry, 1983, Berry and Parasuraman, 1991 and Grönroos, 1994), has changed the focus of a marketing orientation from attracting short-term, discrete transactional customers to retaining long-lasting, intimate customer relationships. Many firms have established relationship marketing (or loyalty) programs to foster customer loyalty toward their products and services (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2004). The cornerstones of relationship marketing, relationships have been described best as the formation of “bonds” between the company and the customer (e.g., Roberts et al., 2003). As existing literature suggests, businesses can build customer relationships by initiating one or several types of bonds, including financial, social, and structural bonds (e.g., Berry, 1995, Berry and Parasuraman, 1991, Lin et al., 2003, Peltier and Westfall, 2000 and Williams et al., 1998). However, much remains to be learned about the relationship between such firm-initiated relational bonds and customer perceptions and behaviors (Gwinner et al., 1998). Value represents another important element in managing long-term customer relationships (Pride and Ferrell, 2003). Because definitions of value vary according to context (Babin et al., 1994, Dodds et al., 1991, Holbrook, 2005 and Holbrook and Corfman, 1985), we conceptualize value as an outcome of consumption experiences. In Babin et al.'s (1994) study, value is defined as a subject's relativistic preference after his or her interactions with things or events. In developing marketing activities, firms must recognize that customers receive benefits from their experiences and that a well-designed marketing mix can enhance perceptions of value (Pride and Ferrell, 2003). Therefore, customers' experiences with relational bonds may influence their value perceptions. Several recent consumer behavior studies have focused on the perceived value of marketing activities. Various literature has evaluated shopping trips (Babin et al., 1994) and sales promotion activities (Ailawadi et al., 2001 and Chandon et al., 2000) according to their utilitarian value, or the merit of the economical factors acquired, and their hedonic, or emotional, value, as generated from these activities. In this study, we propose that relational bonds, which are created through economic or emotional marketing activities, may improve customers' utilitarian or hedonic value. When consumers highly value these bonds, they are motivated to be loyal. According to the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) paradigm (Woodworth, 1928) and value research (e.g., Ailawadi et al., 2001 and Babin et al., 1994), relational bonding activities by a firm (stimulus) may influence customers' value perceptions (organism), which in turn may influence their purchase behaviors (response). Therefore, relational bonds correlate to the value perceptions of consumers and correspondingly enhance, or undermine, their loyalty. The fundamental question underlying this research is how consumers respond to relational bonds and how these bonds promote long-term relationships. To provide insights into the design and implementations of effective customer retention strategies, we divide bank customers into three segments: loyal customers, dissatisfied switchers (customers who switch because of their unsatisfactory experiences), and satisfied switchers (customers who switch for reasons other than dissatisfaction) (Ganesh et al., 2000). According to the previous literature, the psychological state and behavior of one customer segment differs significantly from that of other segments (Ganesh et al., 2000 and Keaveney and Parthasarathy, 2001). Therefore, customers in different segments may apply either utilitarian or hedonic value to their evaluation of a firm's marketing activities. When people are not explicitly told which value to apply, the value of their shopping experience may depend on their personal values, goals, or needs (Adaval, 2001, Babin et al., 1994 and Mano and Oliver, 1993). Specifically, the purpose of this study is to explore the influence of different relational bonds on customers' perceptions of utilitarian and hedonic values, as well as on the loyalty among different customer groups in the banking industry. We hypothesize that the value perceptions of customers mediate the relationship between relational bonds and customer loyalty. Our rationale is that relational bonds, which are composed of economic- or emotion-related marketing activities, may improve customers' utilitarian or hedonic value perceptions. When consumers perceive high value from these relational bonds, they are motivated to be loyal. Furthermore, we test the model among three customer groups to explore differences in their attitudes and behaviors. In the following sections, we review prior research on utilitarian and hedonic values, relational bonding strategies, and loyalty and then present the research methodology, including a delineation of the measurement used to test the hypotheses. Following an examination of the results, we provide some key managerial and research implications.

With this research, we apply the relationship marketing concept to retail banking services in an empirical study. According to the S–O–R paradigm, relational bonds offered by a bank (stimulus) may influence customers' utilitarian and hedonic values (organism), which influences those customers' loyalty (response) to the bank. The results suggest that both financial and structural bonds positively affect customer utilitarian value, whereas the social bond positively influences hedonic value. Both utilitarian and hedonic values positively affect customer loyalty. According to Ganesh et al.'s (2000) results, customers who switched firms because of their dissatisfaction with their previous service firm differed significantly from other customer groups in terms of their satisfaction and loyalty behavior. As switchers, they may have received similar services and had experiences within the industry (Grace and O'Cass, 2001), which altered their expectations in comparison with the group of stayers. As Parasuraman et al. (1985) propose, service quality represents the difference between customer perceptions and expectations. Therefore, different levels of customer expectations may lead to different levels of service evaluations, which would account for the behavioral differences among stayers, satisfied switchers, and dissatisfied switchers. To examine whether H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 are supported for stayers, satisfied switchers, and dissatisfied switchers, we investigate the relationships among relational bonds, customer value, and customer loyalty among these three groups. As we suggest in Fig. 1, the hypotheses all are supported by the stayer model. Moreover, the modified model, which adds a path from the structural bond to hedonic value, is significantly better than the original model. The structural bond appears to satisfy not only utilitarian value but also hedonic value for stayers. For dissatisfied switchers, only the structural bond significantly affects their utilitarian value, and only the utilitarian value significantly influences customer loyalty. Therefore, for the group of dissatisfied switchers, the structural bond is the most effective means to enhance customer loyalty. Finally, for the group of satisfied switchers, the structural bond significantly influences utilitarian value, the social bond significantly affects hedonic value, and both utilitarian and hedonic values significantly influence customer loyalty. Consequently, both social and structural bonds effectively enhance customer loyalty for satisfied switchers. The results of this research establish that stayers obtain value from all three relational bonds and that dissatisfied switchers perceive value only from a structural bond. Previous literature provides some insight into why stayers are more likely to have the highest perceptions of value. Because they do not have much experience with other banks, are not acquainted with offers from other banks, and may perceive higher switching costs than the other two groups, stayers remain loyal to the service firm even when they are dissatisfied (Ganesh et al., 2000 and Oliva et al., 1992). Furthermore, cognitive dissonance theory suggests that persons attempt to reduce inconsistency in their attitudes or between their attitudes and behaviors (Festinger, 1957). Therefore, a stayer may rationalize that the service firm delivers a higher value than the competitors to allay his or her personal disappointment with the firm that he or she has chosen. Conversely, relationship marketing activities cannot affect dissatisfied switchers' perceptions except through structural bonds. In terms of their purchase involvement, or the degree of care required for a purchase and the amount of effort expended to make a purchase (Baumgartner, 2002), prior literature suggests that dissatisfied switchers exhibit a higher level of purchase involvement than do the other two groups (Ganesh et al., 2000). Consumers with high purchase involvement tend to apply higher standards to their evaluations of products or services, so unless the marketing activities are superior to those of other suppliers, consumers will not perceive value from these activities.