Managing customer relationships in emerging markets: Focal roles of relationship comfort and relationship proneness

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of relationship comfort and relationship proneness on the ability of service firms to build and maintain customer relationships in emerging markets (EMs).

Design/methodology/approach

A field-survey was conducted with retail-banking customers in India (n=300) using a structured self-administered questionnaire with well-established scales.

Findings

Relationship comfort positively affects key relationship marketing (RM) constructs (e.g. customer satisfaction, trust, commitment and loyalty) and relationship proneness positively moderates (strengthens) the impact of relationship comfort on customer commitment and loyalty.

Research limitations/implications

The findings may not be generalizable to all customer types using bank services as well as other types of services and in other EMs.

Practical implications

Service firms in EMs can build and maintain robust customer relationships by using relationship comfort and relationship proneness to strengthen key RM constructs, such as customer satisfaction, trust, commitment and loyalty.

Originality/value

The paper highlights the importance of maintaining RM as a tool to build valuable customer relationships but also reveals the importance of relationship comfort and relationship proneness in building trust-based customer relationships in the EMs.

Citation

Gaur, S.S., Kingshott, R.P.J. and Sharma, P. (2019), "Managing customer relationships in emerging markets: Focal roles of relationship comfort and relationship proneness", Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 29 No. 5/6, pp. 592-609. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-12-2018-0295