Customer Relationship Strength in Relationship Marketing

Customer relationship strength and its antecedents and consequences were studied in the context of policyholder and agent relationships in the life insurance industry in China. A three-dimension measurement model for customer relationship strength was proposed involving affective strength, cognitive strength and conative strength. A measurement scale for customer relationship strength was developed and validated based on 207 matched questionnaires (insurance agents and their clients) from a major Chinese insurance company. Empirical results indicated acceptable levels of reliability, unidimensionality, convergent validity and discriminant validity for the measures. Results from structural equation modeling suggest that a customer s perceptions of relationship value, termination cost, salesperson likeability, personal selling behavior, and the customer s innovativeness and complaint propensity are significantly correlated with customer relationship strength. The empirical findings further show that customer relationship strength significantly influences sales effectiveness and relationship profitability.

Autorentext

Dr. Guicheng Shi is an Associate Professor of Marketing, Faculty of Management and Administration, Macau University of Science and Technology. He gained his Ph. D. from Hong Kong Baptist University and has published in a number of refereed journals, such as International Journal of Market Research and Journal of Business Ethics.